# Event Details - **Event Name**: Shivani Gowda: The Department of Destruction - **Event Start and End Date**: Fri, 26 Sep, 2025 at 08:30 pm – Sun, 07 Dec, 2025 at 04:45 pm - **Event Description**: A site-responsive performance and exhibition that transforms West Den Haag into a bureaucratic theatre of absurdityAbout this EventSHIVANI GOWDATHE DEPARTMENT OF DESTRUCTIONWith The Department of Destruction, West Den Haag detonates the very idea of a passive exhibition. This part-theatre, part-bureaucratic séance performance is a hybrid, site-responsive intervention that stages a feverish investigation into a cultural institution on the edge of dissolution. Set within the charged architecture of the former American Embassy, it questions the fate of art spaces under administrative pressure and ‘economic progress’.Two officials arrive to determine West’s future: Saulė Petreikytė plays a conflicted Middle Manager, while Isma Bloom takes on the role of an opportunistic Harbinger. Should West remain autonomous, be absorbed into the state’s cultural machinery, or be shut down entirely? What begins as a Socratic dialogue quickly spirals out of control. The elusive Memorialist, portrayed by Yorrick van der Ouw, has disappeared, leaving behind a ransacked office and unresolved findings that haunt the building like a bureaucratic ghost.On the ground floor, the audience is pulled into the thick of this bureaucratic showdown. Policy manuals become shields, missing documents become weapons, and the dialogue devolves into a battle of stalled procedure and unresolved logic. As contradictions pile up, deeper questions emerge: when do mechanisms meant to protect culture begin to dismantle it? Who decides what art is worth saving? And who profits when it is declared obsolete? Downstairs, the tone shifts. In dilapidated surveillance rooms once rumoured to house CIA offices, the Memorialist reappears as a spectral presence. No longer just missing, he becomes a figure of quiet reckoning, offering reflection on failure, complicity, and the unfinished business of institutions. On days without performance, a video installation takes over, pushing the satire further and offering insight into the department’s origins, purpose, and internal contradictions.Born from frustration with systems that both nurture and devour artistic labour, this performance remixes research, satire and lived experience into an indictment of institutional death and bureaucratic absurdity. Its characters are composites of makers, administrators, educators and bystanders who have shaped the artist’s own uneasy passage through such spaces.Rather than resolve West’s fate, The Department of Destruction invites audiences to dwell in ambiguity, where procedure becomes performance and audits reveal the private cost of sustaining art in a world eager to discard it. The work refuses to offer its audience easy answers. Instead it asks them to sit with the discomfort, to witness the quiet violence of decisions made behind closed doors, and to consider how readily art, and those who make it, can be pushed off the ledger when the bottom line demands it.Shivani Gowda (b. 2000) is a writer, first and foremost. She is in an absurd situation where she does not understand art nor its value, yet she stands amidst it and holds on to it fiercely. Born in the South of India and raised in the bureaucratic sprawl of the UAE, Gowda grew up navigating class difference, linguistic fragmentation, and the quiet violence of censorship. She studied Fine Art at the University of the Arts London and graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. This is her first public exhibition.The Department of Destruction is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to institutions or events is purely coincidental.The performance will be in English. - **Event URL**: https://allevents.in/den-haag/shivani-gowda-the-department-of-destruction/100001741621810719 - **Event Categories**: Art, Exhibitions, Theatre, Workshops, fine-arts, literary-art - **Interested Audience**: - total_interested_count: 0 ## Ticket Details - **Ticket URL**: https://consumer.pxf.io/c/1339408/3151484/39691?partnerpropertyid=1191892&MediaPartnerPropertyId=1191892&svlink=14105511&level=1&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eventbrite.com%2Fe%2Fshivani-gowda-the-department-of-destruction-tickets-1741621810719 - **Ticket Price Range**: min: 0, max: 0, currency: EUR ## Event venue details - **city**: Den Haag - **state**: ZH - **country**: Netherlands - **location**: West Den Haag - **lat**: 52.0825476 - **long**: 4.314980099999999 - **full address**: West Den Haag, 102 Lange Voorhout, Den Haag, Netherlands ## Event Organizer details - **affiliate_id**: 10 - **organizer**: West Den Haag (https://allevents.in/org/west-den-haag/17609088) ## Event gallery - **Alt text**: banner - **Image URL**: https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events7/banners/6ea03981d9af7fd92042e3c5a5d43fd3a001a9ccfb7e7683a7c26490f7147553-rimg-w1200-h857-dc151516-gmir.jpg?v=1760620995 - **Alt text**: thumbnail - **Image URL**: https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events7/banners/ea7bfab6d60922dbc9b3569787b54d21ce9e6c4ed161278c2f730154dac5a7b7-rimg-w400-h400-dc2e2e30-gmir.jpg?v=1760620994 ## FAQs - **Q**: When is the event happening? - **A:** Fri, 26 Sep, 2025 at 08:30 pm - **Q**: Where is the event happening? - **A:** West Den Haag, 102 Lange Voorhout, Den Haag, Netherlands - **Q**: What is the ticket price? - **A:** starting from 0 up to 0 EUR - **Q**: Who is organizing the event? - **A:** West Den Haag - **Q**: What type of event is this? - **A:** Art, Exhibitions, Theatre, Workshops, fine-arts, literary-art - **Q**: Where can I find ticket details about Shivani Gowda: The Department of Destruction ? - **A:** You can find ticket details about this event on AllEvents. ## Structured Data (JSON-LD) ```json [ { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Event", "name": "Shivani Gowda: The Department of Destruction", "image": "https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events7/banners/6ea03981d9af7fd92042e3c5a5d43fd3a001a9ccfb7e7683a7c26490f7147553-rimg-w1200-h857-dc151516-gmir.jpg?v=1760620995", "startDate": "2025-09-26", "endDate": "2025-12-07", "url": "https://allevents.in/den-haag/shivani-gowda-the-department-of-destruction/100001741621810719", "location": { "@type": "Place", "name": "West Den Haag", "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "streetAddress": "102 Lange Voorhout", "postalCode": "2514 EJ", "addressLocality": "Den Haag", "addressRegion": "ZH", "addressCountry": "NL" }, "geo": { "@type": "GeoCoordinates", "latitude": "52.0825476", "longitude": "4.314980099999999" } }, "eventAttendanceMode": "https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode", "description": "A site-responsive performance and exhibition that transforms West Den Haag into a bureaucratic theatre of absurdity", "offers": [ { "@type": "AggregateOffer", "availability": "https://schema.org/InStock", "priceCurrency": "EUR", "availabilityStarts": "2026-04-05", "availabilityEnds": "2025-12-07", "validFrom": "2026-04-05", "lowPrice": "0.00", "highPrice": "0.00", "price": "0.00", "url": "https://allevents.in/den-haag/shivani-gowda-the-department-of-destruction/100001741621810719" }, { "@type": "Offer", "availability": "https://schema.org/InStock", "priceCurrency": "EUR", "availabilityStarts": "2026-04-05", "availabilityEnds": "", "validFrom": "2026-04-05", "url": "https://allevents.in/den-haag/shivani-gowda-the-department-of-destruction/100001741621810719", "price": 0, "name": "Algemene toegang" } ], "organizer": [ { "@type": "Organization", "name": "West Den Haag", "url": "https://allevents.in/org/west-den-haag/17609088" } ] } ] ```