Das Leben am Haverkamp (meaning: The Life at the Haverkamp) is an art collective constituted like a soap opera: a never-ending tale, intimately intertwining the individual and the collective artisthood of its members. Anouk van Klaveren, Christa van der Meer, Dewi Bekker and Gino Anthonisse founded the collective in 2014, after graduating from the fashion department of the Royal Academy of Arts. In their shared laboratory they experiment with what fashion can be beyond a capitalist object.

Inspired by the quirky reality of daily life and the human need for myths and alter egos, all members indulge the mystic urge to create tactical objects. Masks with striped ears, wooden creatures on gold-plated wheels, garments for inflatable giants, ceramic shoe-balls, concrete blocks adorned with fluffy push buttons, animal figurines with flowing hair, sculptures with balloon-like hands, tuxedo-shaped garden cushions – to name a few.

The collective was founded in 2014, in a street called Haverkamp, situated in the outskirts of The Hague. In an abandoned school building the collective set up their first shared studio. In 2021 Das Leben am Haverkamp relocated to the Stille Veerkade and opened an eponymous projectspace. Eversince, they have opened up their studio for like-minded makers, thinkers and a curious audience. Together they explore the absurd, magical and seductive nature from what we delightfully – but often problematically – call fashion.

📸 Das Leben am Haverkamp, 2023, Screening Alter Egos, work by Lisa Konno & Sarah Blok, photo by temet.studio