When You Enter Water

If a river had a voice, what song would it sing?

Sound and Visual Performance | Adele van Heerden & Botanicas

Inspired by the movement and presence of water, this immersive sound and visual performance explores the blurred boundaries between the natural and the synthetic. Through biomimicry and experimentation, Adele van Heerden and Botanicas construct a “third reality”—a space where reconstructed natural elements become something entirely new.

Three custom-built instruments—a River, Waterfall and Pond—create an evolving sonic landscape of ambient sound, while Adele paints live, using her brush as an instrument. Botanicas accompanies and conducts the flow of the performance, guiding the dialogue between sound, movement and image. Together, they invite audiences into an audiovisual space for reflection, rest and quiet contemplation.

Expect an evening where colour and sound intertwine, dissolving the boundaries between reality and imagination in a meditative exploration of nature, perception and transformation.

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About the Artists

Adele van Heerden

Cape Town-based visual artist Adele van Heerden’s practice is informed by close observation of landscape, with a particular focus on surface, light, reflection and fluidity. Following a residency at Nirox in 2026, where she researched the region’s water systems and created a large-scale site-specific installation, this performance extends the ideas explored in that body of work. The research also informs her Cubicle exhibition at Everard Read, presented as part of HEAT 2026.

Botanicas

Botanicas, a Cape Town-based ambient sound and installation artist working at the intersection of ecological systems and sonic perception, joined Van Heerden at Nirox to connect with the landscape on a sonic level. Drawing on things like real-time plant data, Botanicas designs custom instruments that transmute organic processes into immersive soundscapes which explore the hidden acoustic dimensions of forests, oceans, and the living systems that connect them.

Together they are creating a series of field recordings and generating a composition in combination with synthetic sounds in response to this environment.