Platform 0090 / production

III ANNIHILATION

a metamorphosis

A biologist joins an expedition into Area X, a forbidden zone where nature has reclaimed the land and where previous missions ended in disappearance, madness, or collective amnesia. 

She keeps a field diary.

What begins as a research expedition slowly turns into a descent into the unknown. Inside Area X, reality begins to slip and the scientific method reaches its limits. As the biologist ventures deeper into the zone, her attempt to observe and understand gives way to a radical metamorphosis: a symbiosis, a crisis, a dissolution of self.

Yet she returns.

A detective interrogates her, trying to reconstruct what happened inside Area X and how she made it back from the zone. But as the interrogation continues, doubt emerges: the one who returned no longer seems to correspond to the one who was sent in.

“If I don’t have real answers, it is because we still don’t know what questions to ask. Our instruments are useless, our methodology broken, our motivations selfish.” - Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer

In this theatrical adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer’s cult novel Annihilation, Thomas Ryckewaert and performer Ika Schwander attempt to give form to a world where you become what you observe.

Direction Thomas Ryckewaert Adaptation & performance Ika Schwander, Thomas Ryckewaert Dramaturgy Kristof Van Baarle Scenography Erki De Vries Light Luc Schaltin Sound Marijn Ottenhof Video Kurt D’Haeseleer Costume Andrea Kränzlin Production Platform 0090