Lecture by Maria Hlavajova

In her practice as a curator, organizer, educator, and director of BAK (Basis voor actuele kunst) in Utrecht, Maria Hlavajova has been interested in exploring what she calls the “art in the otherwise.” Committed to art in the public space and political sphere, she has consistently asked the question how art can help us envision and enact ways of being together. Different from the contemporary world riddled by inequalities and conflicts. In the lecture, Hlavajova will discuss a number of projects that engage these issues, including the current project at BAK titled Propositions for Non-Fascist Living (2017–2020).

Over the next four years, BAK unfolds its long-term research itinerary Propositions for Non-Fascist Living. Prompted by the dramatic resurfacing and normalization of fascisms, historical and contemporary, and inspired by philosopher Michel Foucault, BAK develops and gathers propositions for an “art of living counter to all forms of fascism, whether already present or impending,” including “the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.”

Through its exhibitionary, discursive, and performative facets, Propositions for Non-Fascist Living attempts to articulate and inhabit methods of de-individualized living; methods in which multiplicity and difference enact relations other than those enamored with power and hierarchy, endeavoring to both articulate and inhabit options of being together otherwise.