Artist: Afrodita Deretic

ABOUT US:

URLOVED PROJECT  in collaboration with IMPACT ARTS COLLECTIVE inspires and empowers artists, art collectors and communities to recognize the healing power of collaborative and community art projects, thereby, creating social change and opportunities for constructive dialogue.

We believe that as artists and art lovers, we can come together to use the healing power of art through the process of collaborative art making in diverse, marginalized communities.

We seek to engage in healing arts by creating an artist-led and inspired movement to serve and support various communities such as orphaned and abandoned children. Create art community projects in times of armed, political or religious conflict, heal trauma of refugees, street youth, incarcerated communities and those with physical and mental disabilities.

Our URLOVED PROJECT initiatives are organized in collaboration with local artists in these areas, existing organizations who depend on our support as well as our own community and volunteer service trips to various countries, where together, we engage in community and collaborative art making by creating murals, opening art centers and performing various art therapy activities.

WHO STARTED URLOVED PROJECT?

URLOVED PROJECT officially started in 2018, but has been in the making for many years prior to its launch. The organization was founded by, Afrodita Deretic, (DITA), who is a civil war survivor, Bosnian refugee, social entrepreneur, Bosnian-born artist and art therapist. Her dream of becoming an artist started at a very early age, even before elementary school. AND her vision of becoming “a healing artist”was born when she was a pre-teen during her dark, lonely days in a refugee camp where she spent 11 months separated from her loved ones as result of the civil war in her country in the early 1990s. Since arriving to the US as a refugee, Afrodita has been growing as an artist while engaging in various community projects working with fellow refugees as well as incarcerated communities and orphaned and abandoned children in Bosnia and Mexico.