Maria Hlavajova

Maria Hlavajova is a Slovak art historian, curator, researcher, and educator. She founded and served as general and artistic director of BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, in Utrecht from 2000 to 2025, and was research and artistic director of the collaborative project FORMER WEST from 2008 to 2016. She also co-founded the tranzit network with Kathrin Rhomberg and has curated projects including Citizens and Subjects for the Dutch Pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale and Call the Witness, the Roma Pavilion at the 2011 Venice Biennale.

Hlavajova has edited or co-edited publications including Former West: Art and the Contemporary After 1989, Posthuman Glossary, Deserting from the Culture Wars, and Toward the Not-Yet: Art as Public Practice. She contributed the foreword to Challenging Institutionalization: A Propositional Toolkit for Doing Supervision of Artistic and Practice-Based Research.