Upcoming: SCREENING: COSTUMES
This fall, the facade of Das Leben am Haverkamp transforms into an outdoor cinema again. Every two weeks, a new experimental triptych will light up the windows!
Following up on previous editions in which we have been exploring Alter Egos, Luxury, and Fakeness, this edition zooms in on the phenomenon of the costume. Whether it takes the form of uniforms, masquerades, carnival attire, drag, cosplay, or mascot suits; wearing a costume transforms us. We explore how costume blurs the boundary between reality and play. How does it shape the roles we perform in everyday life? How can it allow us to escape reality? In what ways is costume used as a tool of hierarchy, or as a form of social armour? Together with a new generation of makers, Das Leben am Haverkamp explores the transformative power of costume.
Thanks to our amazing external selection committee, consisting of Ruben Verkuylen (co-founder wysiwyg), Simic Over (visual artist) and Peter Paul Marijnen (neighbour), four works have been selected to be shown. Scroll down to see the programme.
The programme is part of art route Hoogtij. On the 27th of November, 20:00—20:45 h, you are invited for a Q&A with the makers. We host a conversation around the costume. What does it mean for each of them, and how do they instrumentalise it in their work? On this special evening we screen all films, and serve some hot drinks outside!
DAILY SCREENING HOURS
2 November—27 December
17:00—23:00 h
HOOGTIJ
27 November, 19:00—23:00 h
screening al four works
Q&A DURING HOOGTIJ
doors open 19:30 h
Q&A starts at 20:00 h
LOCATION
Stille Veerkade 19, The Hague
free entrance and wheelchair accessible
2—15 November
17:00—23:00 h
JONATHAN HO (MY)
Sex Shells: The Gastropoda Mysteries (2019, 5 min)
Jonathan Ho explores the visual complexity and fluidity of gender by translating the aesthetics and material culture of fetishism into moving sculptural forms. The film Sex Shells: The Gastropoda Mysteries (2019), was produced in collaboration with Dr. Joris Koene, an evolutionary biologist specialising in the hermaphroditic sexuality of snails. Leather and latex appendages were designed to evoke parts of the human body commonly associated with gender and sexuality, without resolving into any single anatomy. The work connects to the theme of Costumes through ongoing questions around gender as a performative act. His film approaches costumes not simply as objects worn on the skin, but as something capable of extending, exaggerating, and destabilising the body itself.
Director and concept design: Jonathan Ho
Scientific research and input: Joris Koene
Performers: Christian Guerematchi and Keren Rosenberg
DOP/Editor: Nicola Cavalazzi
Interns/production assistance: Ada Reinthal, Daan Bosch, Arthur Guilleminot
16—29 November
17:00—23:00 h
SIXIN ZENG (CN)
The 2.5D Nomad (2026, 8 min)
The 2.5D Nomad (2026) is a moving image work that examines how migration reshapes identity through digital visual culture. Combining documentary, fiction, and personal experience, Sixin Zeng explores how cosplay serves as an unexpected space where East Asian migrant women negotiate visibility, belonging, and self-representation. Developed through fieldwork at European cosplay conventions and within East Asian communities, the film follows experiences that move fluidly between everyday life, online image cultures, and performed identities. Rather than treating cosplay as mere escapism, the work approaches it as a meaningful cultural practice. Through cosplay, participants experiment with alternative selves while responding to the social realities of migration, racialization, and gender.
Director: Sixin Zeng
Featuring Cosplayers: Shiyi Zhu, Wenxuan Peng, Michelle/米如MIRU, Jiu, Isa糖果怪, 谢狱尘, 冥冥, Jingjing Wang, Qingyang Bai, beefleafblossoms, Seraphina Star, Ash, Cheer, @noukie.cosplays, Anne, @xavycosplays, @linde_cosplay_, raccoon_.cos, @astradrina_cosplays
Editor/animator: Sixin Zeng
Music and sound: Post Angel
Camera: Sixin Zeng, Jingjing Wang
Title design: Matteo Pirolo
Supported by: Mondriaan fonds
30 November—13 December
17:00—23:00 h
KAREL DE COCK (BE)
Benevolence (2024, 14 min)
Benevolence (2024) is constructed from fragments of seven frames each, cut from an archive of around 1,200 Hollywood films from the 1940s and 1950s. Karel De Cock places them in sequence to form one continuous movement: throughout a hundred films, women are approached, pursued, grabbed, and guided through space. What appears as an ordinary scene in a single film becomes a pattern across a hundred. Clothing plays a defining role, making the gender dynamics tangible. In contrast to the man's suit, women typically wear dresses. The dress dictates what the female body can do: it restricts the size of her step and determines how she is grabbed during a chase.
14—27 December
17:00—23:00 h
YAMUNA FORZANI (UK) & IEVA VALULE (LV)
GRWM FOR A DATE! (2026, 4 min)
The work of Yamuna Forzani is deeply informed by the bizarre and theatrical, with particular inspiration drawn from the ballroom scene. GRWM FOR A DATE! (2026) is a short film in collaboration with Ieva Valule, and is a condensed reimagining of a seven-hour endurance performance by performance artist Jacopo Marrese. The work takes the form of a camp, surrealist “day in the life” vlog of a queer character, using absurdity and transformation to explore the boundaries between performance, identity and fantasy.
“hey kittens welcome back to my channel. watch me get ready for a first date with someone i met online. i am keeping everything light with dating now because i am tired of the disappointment. [...] meow pus pus x #cleangirlaesthetic #queer #adhd #ditl #ootd”
Video by Yamuna Forzani and Ieva Valule
Talent: Jacopo Marrese
Special thanks: Juliette Lizotte, Jacob Olvik
Supported by: AFK Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst
The programme is supported by Creative Fund NL and Gemeente Den Haag