Saskia Boddeke: Contemporary media/ music–theatre/ installations.

Saskia Boddeke is a Dutch director, filmmaker and multimedia artist. Her work moves between cinema, documentary, opera, music theatre and large scale audiovisual installation. She creates image led worlds in which film, performance, music, sound, light and spatial design become a single dramatic language.

From 1984 onwards, Boddeke worked at Dutch National Opera, where she was involved as assistant director in 48 international opera productions, working with directors including Dario Fo, Peter Stein and Pierre Audi. In 1994 she began her long artistic collaboration with filmmaker Peter Greenaway, directing Rosa, a Horse Drama, with music by Louis Andriessen and a libretto by Greenaway. This was followed by major international productions including 100 Objects to Represent the World, Christophe Colomb and Writing to Vermeer, which travelled from Dutch National Opera to the Adelaide Festival and Lincoln Center Festival in New York.

For more than three decades, Boddeke has developed a distinctive artistic language in which moving image, performance, sound, objects and digital technology are woven into immersive environments. Her installations do not simply ask to be observed. They place the visitor inside the work, surrounded by projections, voices, music, light, objects and sometimes scent. Technology remains behind the curtain. The human body, memory and history occupy the room.

Her installations have been presented internationally at institutions including the Jewish Museum Berlin, Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, MO Museum in Vilnius, the Hermitage, the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney and maritime museums across Europe. Major works include Obedience, a fifteen room installation created for the Jewish Museum Berlin in 2015, and The Black Square: The Golden Age of the Russian Avant Garde, which received The Art Newspaper Russia Award for Best Exhibition in 2014.

Her opera production Giovanna d’Arco, staged in the Teatro Farnese for the Verdi Festival in Parma, was nominated for Best New Production at the International Opera Awards in 2017. Artuum Mobile: The World of Saskia Boddeke and Peter Greenaway, presented in Toruń, was associated with the Centre of Contemporary Art receiving the Best Museum in Poland Award in 2019.

Alongside her work in opera and installation, Boddeke has developed an independent body of work as a documentary filmmaker. Her film The Greenaway Alphabet received Best Documentary and Best Documentary Feature at the Tirana International Film Festival, Best Documentary at the Master of Art Film Festival in Bulgaria and the Rose d’Or for Best Arts Documentary in 2019.

Her creative documentary Inside My Heart received a Special Mention for Best Dutch Documentary at IDFA in 2022. It was the opening film of the International Festival of Films on Art in Montréal, where it won the Grand Prix in 2023, and was nominated for a Rose d’Or for Best Arts Documentary.

Boddeke continues to work across cinema, documentary and immersive art. Most recently, she co-directed the feature film Lucca Mortis with Peter Greenaway, featuring Dustin Hoffman, Helen Hunt and Sofia Boutella.

• In 2015 Saskia was awarded with the Russian TANR award - Best exhibition of 2015 - for her multimedia installation ‘The Black Square, The Golden Age of the Russian Avant-Garde’ at the Moscow Manege exhibition hall. 

• In 2016 Saskia contributed with her installation ‘Chtchoukine, Matisse, la Danse et la Musique’ to the Icônes de l'art Moderne. La Collection Chtchoukine exhibition at de Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris. The exhibition received over 1.2 million visitors and was after Paris successfully shown at the Art Gallery New South Wales in Sydney. For the Spoleto Festival 2017, Saskia created ‘H is for Horse’, a site specific immersive installation about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse facing a little creature called Hope.

• In 2019 her installation: ‘Artuum Mobile’ a multimedia triple build at the Centre of Contemporary Art in Toruń, contributed to the succes of the museum receiving the award: Best museum in Poland 2019.

• Her documentary ‘The Greenaway Alphabet’ received two awards at the Tirana International Film Festival Albania (TIFF 2018): best documentary and best documentary feature, Best Documentary Award at The Master of Art Film Festival 2018, Bulgaria and The Rose D’Or best art documentary 2019.

• Saskia - alias Rose Borchovski - is also a well-known artist at Second Life where she created several art installations. The Second Life installations can be visited online at The Second Life Grid and at the Aire Mille Flux art-grid. These installations were shown at the Madrid Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo of 2010 and at The Digital Art Exhibition in Spain of 2014. The online installations: ‘The Inevitability of Fate’ and ‘Echoes in the Garden’, received more than 300.000 visitors.

• Projects currently in production: ‘Why is it hard to love’ for MO, Vilnius and the films  ‘ Vertical Movie’ (docu-drama), ‘Furia’ (docu-drama) and ‘Dear Markus’ (feature film).   

Installations/ Exhibitions /DESIGN 

• 2024 Chiaia Metro Station, Naples. Permanent public artworks by Saskia Boddeke and Peter Greenaway for the Chiaia station on Naples Metro Line 6. The mythological visual world accompanies travellers through the underground station, with images of Hades, Persephone, Jupiter and the River Styx. The station opened in July 2024.

• 2024 The Power of Enlightenment: Walking with Kant. Immersive multimedia installation by Saskia Boddeke and Peter Greenaway, created for the 300th anniversary of Immanuel Kant’s birth. Presented by the Einstein Forum in the historic Orangery in the Neuer Garten, Potsdam, from 24 August to 25 September 2024.

• 2020 Why is it hard to love? MO museum, Vilnius, Lithuania

• 2019-2020 A Happy Death, a double build, at the MAV Museo Archeologico Virtuale- Ercolano

• 2019-2020 Artuum Mobile: The world of Saskia Boddeke & Peter Greenaway, a triple build consisting: ‘H is for Horse’, ‘The Greenaway Atelier’ and ‘The Alphabet’ at the Centre of Contemporary Art in Toruń. The Art centre received ‘Best Museum in Poland 2019 Award’ because of this installation.

• 2019 -2020 Message in a Bottle and Sex and The Sea, multimedia installations at the Estonian Maritime Museum.

• 2019-2020 Sex & The Sea , at the Seaplane Harbour - Meremuuseum, Estonia.

• 2018-2019 Chtchoukine, Matisse, la Danse et la Musique. Concept, design and direction. The installation is part of ‘Masters of Modern Art from the Hermitage’, Art Gallery New South Wales, Sydney.

• 2018-2019 Sex & the Sea, a multimedia installation at the Kotka Maritime Museum.

• 2017 H is for Horse, H is for Hope, a multimedia installation, Festival dei Due Mondi, Spoleto, Italy.

• 2017 Body Parts ,a multimedia installation about Peter Greenaway’s Body Part paintings, Sala Veronicas, Murcia, Spain.

• 2016 Chtchoukine, Matisse, la Danse et la Musique. Concept and design by Saskia Boddeke. Script by Peter Greenaway. This installation is part of Icônes de l'art Moderne. La Collection Chtchoukine. Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris. October 2016 to February 2017

• 2016-2017 Sex & the Sea, at the Maritime Museum Helsingor, Denmark. Concept & design by Saskia Boddeke. Opened from September 9 till August 13 2017.In 2015 the exhibition Sex & the Sea showed at the Maritime Museum Stockholm. Concept & design by Saskia Boddeke. Opened from April 10 till April 6 2016.

• 2015 Gehorsam/Obedience, a multimedia installation concerning 'the Sacrifice of Isaac' seen from different religious view-points in 15 rooms of the Jewish Museum Berlin. Concept & Design by Saskia Boddeke.

• 2014 The Wife of a Diplomat, Margaretha Turnor, Castle Amerongen.

• 2014 The Black Square, The Golden Age of Russian Avant-Garde, a multimedia installation for the Moscow Manage, Russia. The installation has received the prestigious Tanr Price Best Exhibition 2014, the annual award of The Art Newspaper Russia.

• 2013 Sex & The Sea, Maritiem Museum Rotterdam. By Saskia Boddeke & Peter Greenaway.

• 2011 A Day in the life of a Castle, a multimedia installation containing 22 screens spread over 12 rooms at Castle Amerongen in the Netherlands. Castle Amerongen. Libretto by Peter Greenaway.

• 2005 Democracy. Performance/ Installation Athens.

• 2005 The Children of Uranium, a multimedia installation with live actors and film; The Museum of Modern Art at Genoa and The New Media Museum at Naples.

• 2004 Wash & Travel, a multimedia installation with live performance at the Eglise Sainte-Marie Madeleine Lille, Lille Cultural Capital Festival 2004.

Opera and music theatre performances

• 2016 Giovanna d'Arco, opera at the Teatro Farnese. Opening performance of the Verdi Festival at Parma.The opera was nominated as best new production by the International Opera Awards 2017.

• 2010 The Big Bang, the inauguration show of the Copernicus Museum of Science in Warsaw, consisting of a projection-show on the exterior of the museum with life performance of music and dance including group participation of 250 Warsaw inhabitants.

• 2008-2015 The Blue Planet, directed by Saskia Boddeke music by Goran Bregovic, libretto Peter Greenaway and Saskia Boddeke. The Production was originally created as the closure performance of the expo in Spain at Zaragoza. The production travelled around Europe and China.

• 2008 Rembrandt’s Spiegel, a multimedia music performance, directed by Saskia Boddeke, music by Vincent van Warmerdam and libretto by Peter Greenaway (Productiehuis Rotterdam. Toured around the Netherlands and to Budapest.

• 2005 The Falls, an installation-music theatre with the students of AERTEZ, directed by Saskia Boddeke, music inspired by David Lang, from the collection of short biographies from The Falls by Peter Greenaway at the Broerenkerk Zwolle.

• 2005 M is for Medicine 2, directed by Saskia Boddeke. A multimedia performance at VU medical Center Amsterdam.

• 2003 Die Zauberflöte, Mozart, in co-direction with Pierre Audi, Salzburger Festspiele, Salzburg.

• 2001 Gold, 92 Bars in a Crashed Car, directed by Saskia Boddeke, music by Borut Krisnik, libretto by Peter Greenaway at Schauspiel Frankfurt

• 2000 Writing To Vermeer, directed by Saskia Boddeke, music by Louis Andriessen, libretto by Peter Greenaway. Premiered at the DNO in Amsterdam. Travelled to Adelaide Festival in Australia and New York Lincoln Festival, the production was revived at the Amsterdam Muziektheater in 2003.

• 2000 La Gazzetta, directed by Saskia Boddeke, music by Rossini at the Summerborn Opera Festival, Zwolle.

• 1998 Christophe Colomb, directed by Saskia Boddeke, music by Darius Milhaud, libretto by Peter Greenaway. Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin

• 1997 & 1999 100 Objects to represent the World, premiered at the Salzburger Zeitfluss Festival. The show toured around Europe and South America. Directey by Saskia Boddeke music by Jean-Baptiste Barriere, libretto by Peter Greenaway.

• 1995 Vleugellam, Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam.

• 1995 De Wolven van Charkof, Amsterdam.

• 1994 & 1996 The Death of a Composer - Rosa, a Horse Drama, DNO Amsterdam. Directed by Saskia Boddeke, music by Louis Andriessen, libretto by Peter Greenaway.

• 1993 Turn of The Tide, Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam.

• 1992 Vals Akkoord, Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam.

FILMS - documentary - SCREENPLAY

• 2026 In development : the Singers Garden- Feature film screenplay based upon the life of Ganna Walska with Peter Greenaway

• 2026 Lucca Mortis. Feature film, co directed by Saskia Boddeke and Peter Greenaway, featuring Dustin Hoffman, Helen Hunt and Sofia Boutella. In postproduction.

• 2022 Inside my Heart - Het zit in mijn Hart , Documentary. Inside my Heart received award: IDFA 2022 Amsterdam Awarded: Best Dutch Documentary special mention FIFA 2023: International Film Festival on the Arts-Montreal: 'GRAND PRIX' and opening film of the festival, nominated for ‘The Rose D’Or best art documentary 2022.

• 2018 Giovanna d’Arco, an artistic registration of the opera performance at Farnese Theatre, premiered on October 2nd 2016. 130 min.

• 2018 The Greenaway Alphabet, Documentary, 68 mins. The documentary received two awards at the Tirana International Film Festival Albania (TIFF 2018): best documentary and best documentary feature, Best Documentary Award at The Master of Art Film Festival 2018, Bulgaria and The Rose D’Or best art documentary 2019 .

• 2017 Down the Volga, Documentary, A River Movie

• 2015 The Sex & the Sea film, part of the travelling Blue Angel Project Performance of Big Hart in Australia

• 1996 Rosa, a Horse drama, direction Saskia Boddeke & Peter Greenaway, music by Louis Andriessen

Animation/Artworks Second Life

• 2015: Echoes in The Garden.

• 2014: The Arrival.

• 2013: The Inevitability of Fate.

• 2013: The Dance of Death A Susa Bubble animation for an installation by Peter Greenaway at Basle. Totentanz.

•  2012: Memories.

• 2012: Lost in Counting.

• 2011: Fear of Falling.

• : Maybe it is better there is only one of me! 

• 2008 - 2020: The Susa Bubble story.       

  These immersive multimedia installations: The Story of Susa Bubble, The Inevitability of Fate, The Arrival and Echoes in the Garden installations were shown at the Madrid Pavilion in the Shanghai Expo 2012 and in The Digital Art Exhibition in Spain 2014. They can be visited online at The Second Life grid and at the Aire Mille Flux art-grid.

VJ show:

• 2007: ‘The Survivor of Warsaw’ by Arnold Schönberg, with Zubin Mehta and Charlotte Rampling at the Florence Opera House. A triple screen live projection show featuring the survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto. 

 SELECTED AWARDS AND NOMINATIONS

• 2023 Grand Prix. International Festival of Films on Art, Montreal, for Inside My Heart.

• 2022 Special Mention for Best Dutch Documentary. IDFA, Amsterdam, for Inside My Heart.

• 2022 Rose d’Or nomination. Best Arts Documentary, for Inside My Heart.

• 2019 Rose d’Or. Best Arts Documentary, for The Greenaway Alphabet.

• 2019 Best Museum in Poland Award. Awarded to the Centre of Contemporary Art in Toruń in connection with Artuum Mobile: The World of Saskia Boddeke and Peter Greenaway.

• 2018 Best Documentary and Best Documentary Feature. Tirana International Film Festival, for The Greenaway Alphabet.

• 2018 Best Documentary. Master of Art Film Festival, Bulgaria, for The Greenaway Alphabet.

• 2017 International Opera Awards nomination. Best New Production, for Giovanna d’Arco.

• 2014 The Art Newspaper Russia Award. Best Exhibition, for The Black Square: The Golden Age of the Russian Avant Garde.