Oranova is a virtual reality world created by Merel Barends. A twenty minute virtual experience lands you in the middle of the Night Market, an open square filled with all sorts of characters: snack peddlers, lixir dealers, gambling teenagers, flamboyant it-girls, and lots of non-human creatures, both threatening and alluring. They are all around you.
You can see HELLA CINNABER keeping an eye on you. There’s the beautiful AMINO with their cat-like eyes, old NEPHELINE with her murmuring rattle, the boy NOBEL in a worn out jester’s costume. They want to sell you something: their vision of the Oranova. Will you join them?
Merel Barends
Merel Barends (1980) is a comic artist and illustrator. Her work has been published by several renowned publishing houses like De Bezige Bij, Uitgeverij Atlas/Contact and Uitgeverij Podium. She did commissions for a wide range of clients, such as IDFA, Vrij Nederland Magazine, Mindshakes (NRC Media), OneWorld, Amsterdam Young Academy, CPNB and Greenpeace.
Merel Barends (1980) is a comic artist and illustrator. Her work has been published by several renowned publishing houses like De Bezige Bij, Uitgeverij Atlas/Contact and Uitgeverij Podium. She did commissions for a wide range of clients, such as IDFA, Vrij Nederland Magazine, Mindshakes (NRC Media), OneWorld, Amsterdam Young Academy, CPNB and Greenpeace.
Barends participates regularly in artistic group projects. Her work was exhibited both in the Netherlands and internationally, including in Burundi (1 Femme, 6 Humeurs), Tunisia (correspondents.org) and the Czech Republic (De Inktpot). At an earlier edition of Cross Comix, she curated the exhibit-in-the-dark ‘Stripped! – A pretty dark room’, where she invited 20 female comic artists to create work inspired by Nietzsche (and his influence).
Barends is an editor of graphic journalism platform Drawing the Times. As a graphic journalist, she found an international audience and her journalistic comics were published in Dutch, English and Arabic. She’s also part of the Medifoor team, an initiative by medical professionals to visualize complex diagnoses and treatments in a patient-friendly way.
Since 2017, together with writer/producer Jantiene de Kroon, Barends has been working on Oranova, a transmedial world building project. Within this arena, she examines new methods of storytelling, always with her own drawing style as a starting point. She developed motion comics (a mix between comic and animation) and directed an animated VR-experience, Oranova Night Market. The latter had its world premiere at Kaboom Festival, and won the second prize in the New Frontiers Competition at Future Film Fest in Bologna.
In 2023 Barends developed a theatrical VR-performance with fusion band Zettai, Fight Your Inner Demons, which is still on tour.At the moment, she’s also working as an art director and designer on Lagos, Home For All, an XR-collab with Nigerian animators and comic artists.
