Maria Hlavajova

Maria Hlavajova is an organizer, researcher, pedagogue, curator, and founding director of BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht (since 2000). Between 2008 and 2016, she was research and artistic director of the collaborative research, exhibition, and education 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 (2017–2024), Future Vocabularies (2014–2017), New World Academy (with Jonas Staal, 2013–2016), among many other international research, education, exhibition, and publication projects.

Her curatorial work includes Call the Witness, Roma Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennale, Venice, 2011; Citizens and Subjects, Dutch Pavilion, 52nd Venice Biennale, Venice, 2007; and Borderline Syndrome: Energies of Defense, Manifesta 3, Ljubljana, 2000.

Publications she has (co-)edited include: Fragments of Repair (with Kader Attia and Wietske Maas, forthcoming 2025); Toward the Not-Yet: Art as Public Practice (with Jeanne van Heeswijk and Rachael Rakes, 2021); 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); Marion von Osten: Once We Were Artists (with Tom Holert, 2017); We Roma (with Daniel Baker, 2013); and Rabih Mroué: A BAK Critical Reader in Artists’ Practice (with Jill Winder, 2012), among others.

She is a 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 Academy of Visual Arts, Prague and of the advisory boards of Center for Art and the Political Imaginary, HDK-Valand, Gothenburg and Kungl. Konsthögskolan, Stockholm; Bergen Assembly, Bergen; Art and Culture Program at Free University, Amsterdam; and IMAGINART, Imagining Institutions Otherwise: Art, Politics, and State Transformation, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam. In the recent past, Hlavajova served on the supervisory boards of European Cultural Foundation, Amsterdam and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Hlavajova holds a honorary doctorate from the University of Gothenburg. She lives in Amsterdam.

Maria@DAI:

DAI-BULLETIN 2024—2025 nr. 3 January 2025

2015: DO THE RIGHT THING !

2006: Responding to student presentations on the 27th of January