Arita Baaijens: “If I’ve managed to sow doubt about how the world works, then I’m satisfied”

For seventeen years, you travelled through the desert with camels. How did you end up with the North Sea?

“Everything I thought I knew about myself and the world was shaken loose in that desert. My connection to the landscape was profound – I dissolved into it. But one day, it ended. Not because I’d had enough, but because the desert seemed to turn away from me. Like a lover leaving without explanation and never coming back. 

In that emptiness, I travelled to southwest Siberia, in 1997, where shamanic traditions were resurfacing after the fall of the Soviet Union. At first, I viewed it all through a Western lens – sceptical, even cynical. I remember thinking: what kind of theatre am I witnessing? But I quickly let go of that mindset. I wanted to understand how people there experienced nature, and whether I could experience it that way too. During a long expedition through the landscape, I wrote down everything I sensed – without interpreting it. Later, I discovered that many of the places where I had felt something special were considered sacred by the local communities.

What I came to understand is that there is no single way to grasp reality. In the West, we always ask: who is right? But the real question is: what story do we, as a society, choose to live by? Do you see a forest as timber to be harvested, or as a sacred space? That’s the difference between disappearance and survival.

You see the same choice with the North Sea—perhaps even more starkly. Few ecosystems are so heavily controlled and industrialised. Yet the sea as a living being? That idea rarely enters the conversation. After earlier journeys, readers would often ask me: ‘Why don’t you ever do something in the Netherlands?’ That stayed with me. What does it say about us, that we treat our own landscape so functionally? And what does that reveal about our identity? The North Sea seemed the perfect place to start exploring those questions.”

So you spend a year in dialogue with the sea. 

“Yes. The idea came to me during a visit to the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam. I thought: what if, in the not-so-distant future, the Netherlands became a zoöp – a society in which non-human life, like animals, plants and ecosystems, also have a voice? Someone would have to speak on behalf of the sea. So I told myself: I’m going to apply for that job. But first, I needed to prepare – because I didn’t know enough. 

I gave myself a year and began listening – to the sea itself, and to people who know it well: ecologists, fishermen, policymakers, scientists, artists. What struck me was that all of them, even the policymakers and fishermen, genuinely loved the sea. But the moment the conversation turned professional, that intimacy vanished. Suddenly, it was all about numbers, policy frameworks, and technical language. The connection disappeared.

Language matters. It shapes how we think. If you use detached language, you make detached decisions. The sea becomes a resource, a system to be managed, rather than a living being in its own right.”

How is the North Sea doing, as a result?

“Terribly. And I say ‘the North Sea’, though of course the sea itself doesn’t recognise those borders – it flows into all the world’s oceans. But the part we’ve named and claimed is in serious trouble. Fish stocks are collapsing: industrial fishing kills around 1.5 billion fish each year, and half of them are bycatch – caught unintentionally and thrown away.

Eels trying to migrate between salt and freshwater are shredded by weirs, dams and pumping stations. The water is becoming more acidic. Then there’s the constant drone of shipping: around 250,000 ship movements per year. The roar of diesel engines is deafening underwater. Porpoises and other marine animals lose their bearings entirely.

And we haven’t even mentioned the wind farms. Everyone tries to minimise ecological harm, but the pile-driving during construction causes hearing loss and disorientation in marine mammals: some even show signs of depression. These creatures rely on echolocation, and we’re severing that lifeline.

Add to that the chemical runoff from agriculture and industry that pours into the sea via rivers, and the dredging: 30 to 40 billion kilos of sand scraped from the seabed each year, to build artificial islands, support wind farms, and reinforce our coasts. The seabed has become a quarry.”

Sounds like the damage is irreversible.

“You’d think so, but there are incredible people out there doing everything they can to protect marine life. Organisations like Stichting Doggerland, which is preparing a legal case against the government for failing to protect the North Sea. The Embassy of the North Sea, the Rights of Nature movement. And I see it in the younger generation too – students from Wageningen, IVN, the Utrecht University of the Arts. There’s a kind of quiet revolution happening. These people, each in their own way – through law, science, art, or activism – are shifting the system.

I believe that if we each keep going, keep doing what we can, the balance will begin to tip. In fact, it already is. You can feel it.

From my window, I look out at Amsterdam’s financial district and I often think: this is the past. The towers, the banks, the law firms – they belong to a world that’s already collapsing. It has no future. That thought gives me comfort. I imagine the buildings in ruins, overtaken by trees, vines growing through the broken glass. That vision helps me carry on, toward something else – something more alive.”

Was there a moment during your research when you felt especially connected to the North Sea?

“Oh, many. Especially when I was snorkelling. I did that in the Atlantic near Scotland and in the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Norway. You could argue that’s not the North Sea – but like I said, the sea doesn’t care about our boundaries. It’s one vast, continuous body. Everything is connected.

I joined the Sea Women Expeditions to study the behaviour of whales and orcas. It was December – pitch black – and we went into the water in drysuits. At one point, I found myself eye to eye with a humpback whale. An animal that knows the route from the Equator to the Arctic. A creature with language, culture, the ability to see in three dimensions. As we floated there, she scanned us – like an ultrasound. She could see our hearts, our lungs, our bones.

She passed by with that vast, ancient presence, and then suddenly turned and looked straight at me. It’s hard to put into words, but something essential happened. I was seen. And I saw her. That moment changed me. I knew I couldn’t just move on to the next thing. I’d crossed into a different kind of relationship – with the sea, with marine life. And with that relationship comes responsibility.”

Still, you didn’t end up applying to become the North Sea’s spokesperson…

“No, because here’s the thing – the sea doesn’t need to justify its existence to us. It simply is. But the moment you step into a policy meeting, that’s exactly what you’re expected to do: explain why the sea matters, why it deserves care. 

So I thought: if I let the sea appoint me as its spokesperson, I’ll be stuck in these meetings for the rest of my life. You get five minutes to plead your case, armed with data and economic arguments, hoping to trigger change. But that’s not what I’m here for. I try to move people, to unlock something that makes them see the world differently.  

So yes, I went to the sea – and it did become a conversation. But not a job interview.”

How important is language if we want to connect to ecosystems?

“Hugely important. Just read a government policy document: it’s full of phrases like ‘water ambition’ and ‘biodiversity targets’. None of it reflects a reciprocal relationship with the living world. It’s a monologue, from humans to nature. 

What’s missing – in Dutch and many other Western languages – are grammar and verbs that allow for the agency of non-human beings. In many Indigenous languages, nature can act. You might say, for instance, that the ground makes it impossible for turtles to lay eggs – meaning the soil is too hard. The ground is doing something.

In Riffian, a language spoken in Morocco’s Rif region, there’s a word that we would roughly translate as ‘to become the sea’: the fisherman becomes the sea, and the sea becomes the fisherman. That reciprocity – linguistic, cultural, spiritual – is extremely powerful.” 

What do you hope this project stirs in people?

“If I’ve managed to sow a seed of doubt about how the world works, then I’m satisfied. Doubt can be powerful. It creates space for new perspectives, for different ways of seeing and being. Hopefully, it shifts their stance in the world, and invites them to step into a different kind of relationship with the living world around them.”