Shivani Gowda

Hidden within the Royal Academy of Art’s long history lies its oldest, most elusive division: The Department of Destruction, tasked with analyzing and archiving the institution’s many collapses. Now, for the first time, the Department opens its gates to public view. Set in the speculative ruins of the academy, this hybrid performance-installation follows three employees as they debate, through a fragmented Socratic dialogue, what must happen next: rebuild, retreat, or burn it all down.

Part theatre, part bureaucratic séance, The Department of Destruction is a meditation on endings, institutional decay, and the quiet, relentless question: what now?