Factor IJ is a cultural hub and kunstuitleen in Amsterdam-IJburg. When I joined Factor IJ, there was no coherent communications system. Posts were inconsistent, artists were introduced without context, and clients often treated artworks as interchangeable decor. As the only marketing person in a small team, I built everything from scratch.

I started with research, conducting interviews with artists from the SPOTLIGHT program. I discovered that in the art rental context, artworks were often flattened into aesthetic objects based on how they matched a room’s palette, not the artist’s intent. But, by adding context and storytelling, we could restore perceived value and authorship, so that became the backbone of the strategy. I developed a segmented content strategy, designed artist onboarding forms so artists had more ownership over their digital profiles, and managed newsletters, B2B outreach to local partners and schools, event listings, and website content. I also led a paid social campaign from brief to delivery.

These shifts grew Instagram followers from 3,400 to 4,000 and increased newsletter open rates from 40% to 62.7%, while a social video campaign reached 12.4K views (7K organic) on a 3,900‑follower account.

For Factor IJ Presenteert: The Findlings, Maas van Duijnhoven transformed street-found waste into eight creatures tied to different Amsterdam neighborhoods, inviting people to look down again and reconsider what the city leaves behind.

As communication lead, I developed and executed a strategy that treated the exhibition as an invitation rather than an announcement. The campaign included press outreach, listings on platforms such as Iamsterdam and Hallo IJburg, printed posters and flyers, social media content, and a three‑phase newsletter campaign. I also conceptualized the “Day Out with the Artist” reel, which reached 12.4K views (7K organic) on a 3,900‑follower account, about three times the usual audience.

VR is branded as the “ultimate empathy machine,” a medium that can place someone inside another person’s reality to dissolve distance. In my thesis, I wanted to test that assumption more critically.

Using the documentary My Mother’s Wing, I conducted an experiment comparing VR immersion with desktop viewing. I measured presence, emotional engagement, and attitude change toward a marginalized out‑group after exposure to experiences of occupation and structural violence. VR significantly increased feelings of presence and emotional intensity, but participants’ attitudes remained largely unchanged. Immersion did not destabilize existing spectatorship, as people filtered the experience through their social and political identities.

The findings suggest that VR works less as a standalone empathy tool and more as a context-dependent medium. It can deepen emotional proximity but cannot, on its own, disrupt deeply held beliefs. This points toward designs that incorporate agency and participation as more promising directions.

To overcome this, I mapped the exact moment when users should understand how the platform supports their work and then built backward from that point. The result was Amplify Your EDGE, a guided onboarding experience with gamified milestones designed to make the value feel immediate versus delayed.

I led the design of Amplify Your EDGE, created all the mockups, managed the project budget, and the social (LinkedIn and Instagram) messaging strategy. The project was awarded Best in Class by a UvA lecturer and a former TrendWatching employee.

Through semi‑structured interviews with six working professionals, I explored how people evaluate sustainability messaging and identify greenwashing. Participants expected sustainability efforts but frequently questioned the motives behind them. Sustainability initiatives were often perceived as driven by profit, reputation management, or external pressure rather than genuine commitment. A common belief that sustainability and profitability are hard to reconcile, especially at scale, reinforced that skepticism.

At the same time, brands that acknowledged limitations and trade‑offs were trusted more than those presenting everything as solved. The project highlighted how transparency and honesty in sustainability communication can build trust even when the efforts are far from perfect.