How to care about Bonaire. A new Dr. Poldergeist video
In this interview, Simon Richter – better known as Dr. Poldergeist – takes us behind the scenes of his latest video, exploring the complex ties between Bonaire and Dutch climate policy. He reflects on two essential ingredients in his creative cookbook: metaphor and humour, and how they help make complex climate issues resonate without oversimplifying.

Created by the Penn Animation as Research Lab led by Simon Richter and Joshua Mosley, Dr. Poldergeist is an animated character that interrogates contemporary approaches to climate adaptation in the Netherlands. Rather than speaking as a technical expert, Dr. Poldergeist adopts the role of a cultural psychologist, holding up a reflective mirror to the Dutch water sector and its underlying assumptions, values, and narratives.
The latest Poldergeist video timely addresses the political and intercultural impasse between the Dutch Caribbean Island of Bonaire and policymakers and ministries in The Hague. Its release came a few weeks after the landmark ruling in the Greenpeace Bonaire lawsuit, in which the Dutch state was found to have violated the human rights of Bonaire’s residents by failing to adequately protect them from the impacts of the climate crisis.
The video humorously highlights similarities and differences between Bonaire and the Netherlands and conveys an Islander perspective on what climate adaptation should mean for Bonaire, with a greater emphasis on regeneration and transformation than on technical fixes.
In a masterclass at Utrecht University (UU), organised by the Visual Lab for Water, Climate, and Deltas and funded by UU Pathways to Sustainability, Simon Richter shared insights into both the experience and the production process behind the video. The discussion, together with the video itself, raised a set of questions and reflections that are further explored in this interview.
Emanuele: You introduced Dr. Poldergeist project’s goal with a metaphor: “to get under a Dutch policymaker’s skin”. Metaphors are central in your videos. Why did you decide to work with metaphor and how do you identify and develop them? What’s the role of the visual in this process?
Simon: Because we make content-rich animated videos, a guiding metaphor is invariably important for both our process and the result. The metaphor is where text and image crucially intersect. We distinguish between tired metaphors, which we avoid, and novel metaphors, which we love. Here are some of the novel metaphors we’ve used: the Netherlands is like a drained swimming pool; gambling with the sea and playing “climate roulette”; climate change as a military operation to overwhelm the Netherlands and liberate biodiversity; the hourglass as a metaphor for Dutch reliance on North Sea sand. Each one of these sets some important aspect of Dutch water management or climate adaptation in a new, often uncomfortable light. Our animation makes the metaphor and what the metaphor means unavoidable: you actually see it. (I should add that the “you” we have in mind is first and foremost water- and climate-related policymakers and experts.) If there’s truth to the metaphor—and that’s where our extensive research comes in—the image will stick with you so that you almost involuntarily have to take the critical insight along in your professional life.
It’s hard to say how we choose our metaphors. It’s a combination of intense familiarity with the material we’re focusing on and imagination. Really understanding the situation comes first. I’m alert to tensions, contradictions, silences—they let me know that something unresolved or difficult is at hand. That’s when I start asking myself: what is this like? That is an invitation to my imagination. I give my imagination some time because I trust it. I don’t ponder. I go for a hike. (The metaphor for our third video came to me as I was hiking in the mountains near Santiago de Chile.) Suddenly it will pop into my mind. Then I test it. Does it hang together or falter? Does it allow me to organize the story I want to tell? Will it provide good visuals? Does it reveal aspects and depths I hadn’t anticipated? If the answer to these questions is yes, I know I have the right metaphor. My gut feeling confirms it.
Emanuele: Another important ingredient of your videos is humour. Why did you choose this register? Can we laugh or be not so serious about topics like the climate crisis or historical grievances and inequities like the slave trade and colonial domination?
Simon: Members of the Dutch water and climate sector tend to take themselves very seriously. They’re formidable. If you question or challenge them on their own terrain, you won’t make much headway. Humour is disarming. It allows you to say things that would otherwise be inadmissible. I think we’re tapping into the Dutch tradition of political satire, known as “Cabaret”. I know you are aware that I’ve collaborated with Patrick Nederkoorn, a very talented cabaretier, whose popular shows similarly confront audiences with uncomfortable questions about climate change. Of course, there are limits. We don’t treat the Dutch history of enslaving people and colonial domination as if they were laughing matters. In our newest video, it’s the “voice of Bonaire”, played by Danique Martis, one of the Greenpeace Bonaire plaintiffs, who speaks about that horrific history and more importantly the cultural resilience of the ancestors of the enslaved. At the same time, initial responses to the video from Islanders indicate that they really appreciate the humour. I’m reminded of the Soviet-era philosopher, Mikhail Bakhtin who had a profound understanding of the importance of humour for people struggling to survive. He said that laughter overcomes fear. I believe that.
Emanuele: Both metaphors and humour are socially and culturally sensitive. And your latest video addresses different publics: the first target audience are Dutch water experts and policymakers, but you plan to translate the video into Papiamentu, the majority language of the Island, as people want to use it also in museums and schools in Bonaire. What are the challenges of crafting a message and a video, with metaphors and humour that are meaningful and appealing for different groups? How did you navigate such challenges?
Simon: Humour involves attitude. If you hang out with people on the Dutch islands of the Caribbean long enough and talk about their relations and experiences with the European Netherlands long enough, humorous stories (not without some bitterness) start to flow. I could sense an affinity between these stories and their implicit attitude and the attitude and storytelling of our videos. Of course, I’m a sympathetic outsider from an American university. That probably made a difference.
Our video is about the relationship between the residents of Bonaire and the European Netherlands. We developed the message of the video through a process of listening to many people on the Island and to the Island itself. We shared the script with our many collaborators to make sure we were on track and made adjustments as needed. We’re pretty confident that the message of our video approximates what Islanders would like Dutch policymakers and experts to hear. Bonaireans and European Dutch watch the same video about their relationship, but they do so from different positions.
For the Papiamentu version, we adapted the script so that lay people and high-school age children can understand. Our translator had fun capturing the video’s attitude using the cultural resources of the Papiamentu language.
Emanuele: In the masterclass you said that good literature should not be too easy. How do you relate this to videos, that are usually considered an easier way to learn compared for instance to scientific articles?
Simon: The videos we make are not explainer videos. They seek to make complexity accessible without oversimplification. They’re also art. The reason art is more rewarding than a glib oversimplification designed to harvest clicks is that art asks you to actualize meaning by actively doing the work of interpretation. Sometimes people say, “But you should have spelled this or that out”. Spelling it out is like explaining a joke or metaphor. We also plant hints that gesture towards greater depths. You don’t have to follow the hints, but if you do you will be rewarded. “How to Care about Bonaire” is a perfect example. We refer to the fact that the American Quaker painter Edward Hicks dedicated a painting known as “The Peaceable Kingdom” to Joseph Foulkes, a New York shipbuilder who acquired the license to exploit Bonaire and the enslaved people of the Kingdom during British rule in the early 19th century. By clearcutting the Wayaká tree, he ruined the island of Klein Bonaire. Since our video is about “Kingdom relations”, we took the idea of the Peaceable Kingdom and created a mural as a utopian challenge. In it you see King Willem-Alexander, Queen Maxima and Princess Amalia, as well as Nolly Oleana, director of the Klimaattafel Bonaire, and MARZ, another of the Greenpeace plaintiffs, who introduced us to the street art he and his friends have created. I can’t even begin to unfold the layers of meaning and emotion that accrue to this set of images and ideas. But as a member of the artistic team, I feel the joy and satisfaction that come from having created art of this caliber.
Emanuele: Let me conclude as Gigi Marzullo, a popular Italian journalist, hosting an midnight interview TV show, used to do with his guests: “Ask yourself a question, and answer it by yourself”.
Simon: In your first question, you mentioned the goat, who plays a prominent role in “How to Care about Bonaire”. I’d like to say a few words about why. Goats are ubiquitous on the island, both in real numbers and in cultural meaning. Goats are part of the legacy of colonialism. The Spanish introduced them in the early sixteenth century so that sailors could enjoy fresh meat when they provisioned on the island. Over the course of time, they became important as a source of sustenance to the enslaved and their descendants. They were kept on kunukus (farms) when agriculture was a predominant livelihood. As employment possibilities at the oil refineries on Curaçao and Aruba opened up in the mid-twentieth century, people allowed them to graze freely. Their numbers increased and they took a serious toll on the island’s biodiversity and by extension contributed to its climate vulnerability. They belong to the landscape and the culture, while endangering both. Opinions about what do with the goats vary and collide.
We knew that goats would feature in our video, but we didn’t know how. It is not our place to tell Bonaireans what to do, and we don’t. We do acknowledge the story of goats and their cultural meaning. We call them “walking symbols of resilience”. We compare them to the cattle the European Dutch are accustomed to seeing on their polder meadows, even though it is well known that they contribute hugely to the nitrogen crisis and their numbers must radically decrease. Since we have a strong cooking motif in the video (from chopping up a fish to represent the Caribbean islands in the Kingdom to cooking up a “dushi climate policy stew”), we decided to put the goat in charge as chef. The sum of all the policy ingredients may well add up to more restricted place for goats on Bonaire, but that decision should come from the people themselves and from their commitment to regenerating the Island. Singling out goats for eradication in the absence of a larger culturally informed discussion is counterproductive. We hope that people in the European Netherlands hear this message loud and clear!
Emanuele: Thank you, Simon! And as you like to end your videos: we will keep watching…with you!
The text only may be used under licence Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 International. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Emanuele Fantini (April 10, 2026). How to care about Bonaire. A new Dr. Poldergeist video. FLOWs. Retrieved June 14, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/161u7




