Merel's work has always been interdisciplinary and inclusive of ethics, philosophy, aesthetics, the literary sciences, and participatory methodology. In 2016, her arts-based project Nested Tensions in Care, developed at the School of Visual Arts in New York, inquired into socio-political tensions in everyday life from an ethical viewpoint of care. The work was published in 2017 by the AMA Journal of Ethics. Before that, Merel developed a performance approach to ‘Autoetnography as a praxis of care’ and more recently, her work ‘Liminal’ (2017) was part of a group exhibit at The Art of Belonging in The Netherlands.