Ivo Schmetz

Description

Ivo Schmetz moved to Amsterdam after graduating from art school in Maastricht. By accident he rolled into the squatting scene and was involved in squatting the OLVG hospital (1998-1999) and the OT301 (1999-now). Living and working in these experimental free spaces has inspired him to not only work on an individual level as a graphic designer and video maker but also explore collective projects. Besides still being involved in the OT301 as a board member, music/cinema programmer and designer he is co-founder of Basserk records (2005-now), co-founder of design agency 310k (2003-2023) and one of the initiators and driving forces of Amsterdam Alternative (2015-now). Besides publishing a bi-monthly free newspaper (since 2015) Amsterdam Alternative is an online platform and collective organizer of lots of public discussions, music events, docu screenings and other small scale, non-commercial events. Under the umbrella of Amsterdam Alternative Ivo has also developed a project called Vrij Beton (for realizing new, collectively owned free spaces) and created the extended, multimedia webdocu about collective ownership.

Ivo is always in search of ways to combine his interestes in graphic design, music, free spaces, writing, activism, video making, autonomy, interaction, experiment and collectivity. Not only because he enjoys it but also in order to create with a purpose.