Awash with art

The installation by Dutch artist Zeger Reyers in the basement of the GEM Museum of Contemporary Art in the Hague, the Netherlands, acknowledges the prior claim of water on the museum's site. The land was drained by previous generations.

Reyers' work frequently creates new biotopes, which display the vagaries of biological processes. At the 2003 Havana Biennial he released 200 white laboratory mice onto a 15-metre-long white tabletop covered with 5,000 kg of white porcelain. Their colouring made them difficult to spot, creating an installation that referenced protective adaptation in nature. Other previous installations covered interior spaces with living fungi.

To reach Aqua Boogie, visitors descend a staircase that has a view across a large pond outside, conveying a feeling of being below water level. They enter an irregular, 220-square-metre space, flooded with dark, non-reflecting water and criss-crossed with pine duckboards (right). As well as allowing viewers to explore the aqueous biotope more closely, this grid recalls Victory Boogie Woogie, a painting by Piet Mondrian, as the installation's title suggests.

The biotope affects many of the senses. “It has the thin fragrance of living water, like you smell when entering a canal,” says Reyers. “The water also dampens sounds, making it a quiet, serene place.” Beneath the surface, 35 leather carp, selected by Reyers because their dark colouring makes them practically invisible, go about unseen business. Like all Reyers' work, Aqua Boogie is accessible, but offers multiple levels of interpretation. It can disconcert viewers by challenging their perceptions of a familiar environment, experienced out of context.

On two occasions during the installation, which can be seen until 7 November, Reyers will recreate a 2001 work, Mussel Chair. A Parisian pavement café chair, encrusted with mussels after having been submerged in the Eastern Scheldt estuary for two years, will be brought to the museum, cleaned up and steamed. The cooked shellfish will be offered to visitors to eat, adding taste to the other sensory experiences offered by Aqua Boogie.