Olivia D'Cruz

Je Droomt Ook Van Jezelf Als Een Schepsel Van Het Moeras is a film inspired by water witching and about being and sharing a body of water.Water witching is a semi-scientific methodol-ogy of locating groundwater or other types of natural resources within the soil, through the use of a y-shaped twig. Olivia D’Cruz made the work at a time when the water table in Friesland was dropping at a worrying rate. The film documents conversations and encounters with people, peatlands, tadpoles, storks and the Alddjip river in Beetsterzwaag, showing the elements that nurture and threaten relationships between people and the water.
Olivia D’Cruz uses drawing, animation,sculpture and filmmaking as tools to record uncanny encounters between landscapes, humans and other animals. They are interested in the structures that make these encounters possible or impossible, and question them from a decolonial perspective.

Olivia D’Cruz is an artist from Goa, India, currently living in Amsterdam. They studied illustration and animation at Academy Minerva, Groningen and are currently participating in the Planetary Poetics Masters Program at the Sandberg Institute. They were shortlisted for the Sybren Hellinga Kunstprijs 2022. Their work has been exhibited, amongst others, at Galerie Noorderlicht and the Tschumi Pavilion in Groningen.