Big Ideas

Maria Hlavajova is founding General and Artistic Director of BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, since 2000. In 2008–2016, she was Research and Artistic Director of the collaborative project FORMER WEST, which culminated in the publication Former West: Art and the Contemporary After 1989 (which she co-edited with Simon Sheikh, 2016). Hlavajova has instigated and (co-)organized numerous projects at BAK and beyond, including the series Propositions for Non-Fascist Living (2017–ongoing), Future Vocabularies (2014–2017), New World Academy (with Jonas Staal, 2013–2016), among many other international (research) projects. Her curatorial work includes Call the Witness, Roma Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennale, 2011; Citizens and Subjects, Dutch Pavilion, 52nd Venice Biennale, Venice, 2007; and Borderline Syndrome: Energies of Defense, Manifesta 3, Ljubljana, 2000. Among publications she edited are Deserting from the Culture Wars (with Sven Lütticken, 2020); Propositions for Non-Fascist Living: Tentative and Urgent (with Wietske Maas, 2019); Posthuman Glossary (with Rosi Braidotti, 2018); and Marion von Osten: Once We Were Artists (with Tom Holert, 2017).  She is Lecturer at HKU University of the Arts, Utrecht. In addition, Hlavajova is co-founder (with Kathrin Rhomberg) of the tranzit network. Hlavajova is a member of the Supervisory Board of the European Cultural Foundation, Amsterdam and of the Advisory Boards of Bergen Assembly, Bergen and IMAGINART Imagining Institutions Otherwise: Art, Politics, and State Transformation, University of Amsterdam. She lives and works in Amsterdam and Utrecht.

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About This Event  

• This event takes place online only  
• You can access this event for free through this web page and also on the Whitechapel Gallery’s YouTube Channel, here.  
• This event is suitable for those over the age of 16  
• We are unable to provide British Sign Language interpretation for this event  
• We are unable to provide live closed captioning or CART for this event.   
• As the event is scheduled for a total of one hour, we will not take a rest break.  
• As the event is being live streamed, you can access it from your home if you have access to an internet connection  
• The event will be available afterwards as an audio recording on this page. We would like to thank the speakers for agreeing to this. 

This information will be updated where required.