In collaboration with

From 24 June to 9 July 2017, BAK hosts the MaHKU graduation exhibition ABiotic Factors. The opening takes place on Friday 23 June from 17 till 19 hrs.

Departing from nature-culture, this year’s MaHKU graduation project takes the urban environment as a site of mutual interactions between both living and non-living agents. An imported tree growing in a backyard in the Netherlands creates its own migratory existence; micro events in the streets of Utrecht trigger poetic narratives; the inner body of an obsolete technology becomes the cartography of an unknown future; and projections of/on plants reflect the abstracted scientific gaze. Critical ecology in this sense includes a new spirit, situating the human animal in reciprocal relation with all diverse biotic and abiotic factors of today’s nature-culture, moving us perhaps beyond the Anthropocene. Are there ways for art to meaningfully participate in these mutating relations?

The MaHKU is the MA trajectory in Fine Art at HKU University of the Arts Utrecht, Utrecht and BAK’s long-time collaboration partner.

With contributions by: Susan Jenkins, Haoran Kang, Zhengqing Li, Dinos Milonas, Elena Pietrini Sánchez, Tereza Telúchová, and Chao Wang. Curatorial advice by Marion von Osten.