[engl] Agency is the capacity of an actor to act in a given environment. Human agency entails the claim that humans make decisions and enact them on the world. But in the time of the Anthropocene, Earth seems to have taken all the characters of a full-fledged actor. It is not humanity opposite the rest but humans in direct interaction with earth, elements, objects, animals and plants. So we better rebuild our democratic institutions and let the “things” have a say in future plans or the future might one day explode in our face.

[engl] The Swimming City is Zea’s fifth album, and the first one featuring guest artists. Immediately in the first song “Sub Specie Ludens” Mats Gustafsson appears on baritone sax and “People Shrink, People Grow” features Oscar Jan Hoogland on piano, who returns in “All Words Have Been Here First”, the song that also features the characteristic and recognisable clarinet playing of Xavier Charles who De Boer made a 7" single with in 2012 called Bourgeois Blues. Zea has toured all over the world and played in thirty five different countries including Ethiopia and Ghana. In Ghana Zea set up a studio with local musicians where two of the songs on The Swimming City were recorded: “Dark Minded Me” and “Ik Kin Der Net By”. This last song is sung in Frysian, De Boer’s first language, who grew up in a small town called Makkum, in Fryslan in the northern part of The Netherlands.