~ by Barbara van den Bogaard I meet Rachel via ZOOM. She is in a coffeebar somewhere in London. Our digital connection is stammering but our personal connection is there from the start. Rachel has been a designer and design manager in the commercial fashion industry for over 20 years. She has been working within sustainability

Marcos Beccari is artist, philosopher and professor at the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), lecturing in the Graphic Design Course. What motivates him artistically is to translate life through watercolor, trying to attribute fluidity and spontaneity to the representation of the human figure.⁠⁠Through Instagram, his paintings gained worldwide notoriety, especially for their technical realism and

Encounters: Hanna Flachs – Germany ~ by Sivan Ravivo Finally the day arrived that me and Hanna (Earthartlab on instagram) are meeting digitally. It took us a while to orchestrate this meeting because of workload, sick kids and sunny days in Portugal 😉 Hanna is a very lovely and interesting person, she is German but

Encounters: Ez Silva – Rotterdam, The Netherlands ~ by Sivan Ravivo On my quest for interesting artists to fill Storybook, Ez Silva is the first illustrator I talk to. She was recommended to Stella by someone on Instagram during our open call for illustrators. I scroll through her feed and beautiful women in all kinds

Encounters: Sheila Prevost – United States of America ~ by Barbara Sivan and I met Sheila on a windy Thursday afternoon via ZOOM in 2022. It was Melanie Scholtz who some time ago connected us to Sheila. It is special to travel around the world via a series of encounters and meet people we otherwise

Encounters: Heather Clewett – United States of America ~ by Barbara I meet Heather in 2018 while we interview her in what we now call ‘The Soul Journey’. I’m a filmmaker and I love to have conversations with people while the camera is on. This is why Global Storytellers exists today you might say. Because

Encounter: Robin Cruise – Hamburg, Germany ~ by Sivan Ravivo One day I received a like on an Instagram post I made by Robin Cruise. I immediately checked out his account because ‘Robin Cruise’, what a fascinating name. It led me to an artist with very colorful work about nature and animals, a happy smiling

Breda, The Netherlands ~ by Barbara van den Bogaard I speak to Trijntje and Wiesje, daughter and mother, in a coffeebar in Breda, The Netherlands, on a Saturday morning in February. They both just recovered from COVID and are out of their house for the first time in over a week. The world is a

Encounters: Tessa Alexander – The islands of Trinidad and Tobago ~ by Sivan Ravivo It’s morning for Tessa and I can hear the birds singing in the background as we meet each other online. She is seated in her studio and I can see a beautiful watercolor portrait in the background. It really looks like

“I think it’s too late to be pessimistic. There’s no way to think optimistically or not – we need actions.” ~ Yann Arthus-Bertrand  When I read this quote by filmmaker, Yann Arthus-Bertrand it struck me as very relevant in our current times. Negative stories will not be our saviors since they make us more passive, more overwhelmed and more anxious. The power of a story is implied