Dead zones 


The premiere of this performance was on 6 July 2023. 
Church of Ruigoord, Amsterdam.

Duration 32 minutes

Buy your ticket here.  

See the website of Ruigoord here.




‘Dead zones’ is a live performance in which visual artist Suzette Bousema will guide you on a metaphoric scuba diving session in one of the Netherland’s dead zone areas, located in Veerse meer, Zeeland.

For this experience, musician and instrument maker Rafaele Andrade composed music, for which she recorded sounds underwater in a dead zone. Man-made dead zones are areas in the ocean where the oxygen disappears, caused by the decay of huge micro algae blooms, fueled by human waste streams, like agriculture runoff and sewage spills. From the surface of the water we will ‘swim’ through the depths of the ocean, until we finally reach the floor.

Dead zones will be performed live by Rafaele Andrade on Knurl, an instrument she designed from biodegradable materials. Coraline Groen will accompany her on the violin and Suzette Bousema will take on the role of storyteller. The visual projections are created in collaboration with programmer Aart Odding.

This performance is created in the context of Silbersee Waterwende. This project is supported by Silbersee, Ruigoord, Fonds Podiumkunsten and Instrument Inventors.


About the makers:

Suzette Bousema - www.suzettebousema.nl

Suzette Bousema (The Hague - NL, 1995) visualizes contemporary environmental topics in collaboration with scientists. Planetary conditions and our place in them are the starting point in her work; the way humans interfere with nature and how we relate to the Earth on an individual level. She works interdisciplinary with photography, printmaking, glass blowing, weaving, sound, smell, and organic materials such as seaweed.

Suzette Bousema graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in 2019. Her work was exhibited at a.o. museum Singer Laren (NL), Foam (NL), Art Rotterdam (NL), Photoville (NY), Fotobok Festival Oslo (NO), COP 25 (ES) and The Scientific Center Kuwait (KW). Her work has been published in a.o. NRC (NL), de Volkskrant (NL), Foam magazine (NL), Harper’s Bazaar (NL), Financial Times (UK), Der Spiegel (DE), Die Zeit (DE) and Liberatión (FR).

Rafaele Andrade - www.rafaele-andrade.com

Rafaele Andrade [Curitiba - Brazil, 1994] is a composer and performer in the field of experimental music. She designed her own string-based instrument ‘Knurl’ and has performed across Latin America and Europe in venues such as Royal Theater Carré (NL), Chigiana Music Festival (IT), Morphine records (DE), Gaudeamus (NL). Her artistic practice has focused on finding a sense of momentum-craftsmanship for music composition and artistic identity through the creation of her own instrument, while working on projects and artworks that reveal social transformation and environmental awareness. She is a member of Netherlands coding Live (NL), iii workspace (NL) and is a research associate at the intelligent instruments lab (IS). She is currently living in the Hague, The Netherlands.

Mark