Buoyants: An Underwater Landscape Inside a Gothic Church

Buoyants: An Underwater Landscape Inside a Gothic Church

Inside the 600-year-old Grote Kerk Veere in Zeeland, Netherlands, artists Ludmila Rodrigues and Mike Rijnierse have transformed sacred architecture into something wholly new. Their installation, Buoyants, submerges the church nave into a world that feels at once aquatic and architectural — an imagined ceiling of moving fabric, sound, and light where history and environment converge.

A Choreography of Fabric and Sound

Suspended seven meters above the ground, a sculpture of translucent green voile drifts through the space like a tide. Engineered with a custom mechanical system by Rob Bothof, its slow undulations echo both the vertical geometry of Gothic vaults and the hypnotic rhythms of sea life.

Complementing this is a multichannel soundscape by Ji-Youn Kang, composed as a two-hour layering of tones that draws the ear upward. Deep frequencies pulse through reclining platforms, allowing visitors not just to hear but to feel the work’s presence through vibration.

Architecture as Ocean

Buoyants is less an installation than an environment. It reframes the lost Gothic ceiling of the church while speaking directly to Zeeland’s long relationship with water — its floods, tides, and rising seas. In this context, water is both material and metaphor: a bridge between the oceanic origins of the land and an uncertain climate future.

By staging a fluid choreography inside a monumental space, Rodrigues and Rijnierse collapse past and present, sacred and elemental. The church becomes not a static relic but a living landscape, animated by fabric, sound, and the weight of history.

project info:

name: ‘Buoyants’ art installation at Grote Kerk Veere
designers: Ludmila Rodrigues | @thebodyoftheaudience + Mike Rijnierse | @mikerijnierse

materials: voile, nylon rope, electronics, 8:4:3 multichannel sound installation

soundscape: Ji Youn Kang

motion engineering: Rob Bothof

3D rendering assistance: Sofia Chionidou

sound engineering: Dario Giustarini

seamstress: Tessa Bekker

wood work: Bas de Boer

intern: Norah van Lith

photographer: Benjamin van der Spek

drone footage: Wilbert Calhouw

commissioned by: Grote Kerk Veere in cooperation with CBK Zeeland

supported by: Municipality of Veere, Zeeland’s Province, the Mondriaan Fund, the Familiefonds Hurgronje, Hoogwerkt, AutoHopper, Quartair, and the Embassy of Brazil