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23 September 2014
And So We Participate

Maria Hlavajova




Op 23 september 2014 geeft BAK’s artistiek directeur Maria Hlavajova een lezing getiteld And So We Participate tijdens het symposium The Museum as a Workshop, georganiseerd door het Centraal Museum, Utrecht. De lezing is onderdeel van een serie publieke en interne uitwisselingen tussen deze twee onderscheidende Utrechtse instellingen. BAK en het Centraal Museum onderzoeken in de loop van 2014–2016 verschillende samenwerkingsvarianten en dragen bij aan het heroverwegen van de opdracht van een kunstinstelling in de snel veranderende mondiale omstandigheden van vandaag.

De samenwerking krijgt gestalte door een parallel en onderling verbonden serie getiteld Future Vocabularies—Future Collections. Future Vocabularies (2014–2016) richt zich als een theoretisch georiënteerd onderzoek, leren, tentoonstelling en publicatieserie op het heroverwegen van onze conceptuele kaders in het licht van de veranderende sociale, economische en politieke contexten, In aanvulling daarop onderzoekt Future Collections verschillende mogelijkheden om zo’n hedendaags, toekomstgericht discours op te nemen in de kern van het museum: de vorming van en het omgaan met een collectie.

“Future Vocabularies—Future Collections departs from an acknowledgment of the present-day global condition, undergirded by the culture of networks (social, digital, religious, and other) and the proliferation of resistance forms and collective initiatives. Observing new politics and alliances in the streets and collective mobilizations across the world, the program asks how artistic, intellectual, and activist practices might help to build an understanding of the changes this new reality brings for the notions of ‘audience’ and the ‘public.’ Future Vocabularies—Future Collections reflects on the consequences these changes bear on the work of a middle-sized discursive art institution and the museum. Rather than taking the research of ‘future vocabularies’ as a thematic exercise on issues of ‘survival,’ ’the posthuman,’ or ‘degrowth,’ the program mobilizes it as a method of acting in the world of today. Accordingly, the two institutions seek ways of mutualizing their respective resources of space, time, competencies, knowledges, finances, and other in order to establish a model of sustainable cooperation with these newly evolving ‘future publics.’ ”

De samenwerking tussen BAK en het Centraal Museum is mede mogelijk gemaakt door Stichting DOEN, Amsterdam.

15 februari 2023, 10.00-18.00

A series of practical publishing workshops hosted by an active squat and anarchist social center in Amsterdam and organized by the Bookbinding Studio of Sandberg Instituut/Rietveld Academy and Lila Athanasiadou. 

Community Portal

4 februari 2023, 13.00-18.00

Using the sancocho (a pan-Latin American soup with no fixed recipe) as a tool for research and encounter, Mercado Lourdes (Bogotá, Colombia) will host and organize a series of field meals. These events activate and connect the multiple affects that have resulted from ongoing research with local producers into the biodiversity of the territory.  

Community Portal

16 december 2022, 15.00-17.00



In all continents, people have built matriarchal cosmologies sustained by complex rituals. In the advent of main modern religions and after centuries of colonizing invasions, the goddesses of antiquity were suppressed by the patriarchal structures that consolidated our era. However, they found ways to speak to us in the language of patterns, melodies, and poems. This workshop uses the voice as a method to reveal the presence of goddesses. 



Community Portal

27 januari, 18.30–29 januari, 21.00 2023

During these sessions—part of the bASIC aCTIVIST kITCHEN (b.a.k.) program in collaboration with Berend Bombarius, De Voorkamer and BAK, basis voor actuele kunst—we want to collectively explore the topic of setting up community kitchens. Different strategies, tools, methodologies, and contexts are explored to learn more about the challenges and opportunities in the practices and theories of community kitchens.

Community Portal


Long-Term ProjectFuture VocabulariesFuture CollectionsAnd So We Participate