Challenging Institutionalization

Maibritt Borgen is Associate Professor of art theory and Head of the Laboratory for Arts Research at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Visual Arts. Jacob Lund is Associate Professor of Aesthetics and Culture and Director of Centre for Research in Artistic Practice under Contemporary Conditions at the School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University. Henk Slager is currently senior lecturer in Artistic Research at the University of the Arts Utrecht and visiting professor at Uniarts Helsinki. Iris van der Tuin is Professor of Theory of Cultural Inquiry in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Utrecht University, where she is also university-wide Dean for Interdisciplinary Education.

Henk Slager is a Dutch professor, curator, and writer whose work focuses on artistic research and visual art. He has held professorships at the University of the Arts Helsinki, Manchester Metropolitan University, Nottingham Trent University, and HKU University of the Arts Utrecht, where he also served as dean of the MaHKU Graduate School of Visual Art and Design. Slager co-initiated the European Artistic Research Network and has served as an artistic research adviser to the European Research Council.

His publications include The Pleasure of Research, The Postresearch Condition, Archeology of Art Theory, and Challenging Institutionalization: A Propositional Toolkit for Doing Supervision of Artistic and Practice-Based Research, which he co-edited with Maibritt Borgen, Jacob Lund, Iris van der Tuin, and Maria Hlavajova.

Iris van der Tuin is Professor of Theory of Cultural Inquiry in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Utrecht University, where they also serve as the university’s academic lead for Interdisciplinary Education. Trained as a feminist epistemologist, their work connects philosophies of science and the humanities, cultural theory, science and technology studies, and critical and creative approaches to cultural inquiry.

Van der Tuin earned a PhD in the Humanities from Utrecht University, graduating cum laude, and master’s degrees in Philosophy and Political Science from the University of Amsterdam, also cum laude. Their books include New Materialism: Interviews & Cartographies (2012), co-written with Rick Dolphijn; Generational Feminism: New Materialist Introduction to a Generative Approach (2015); and the edited collection Methods and Genealogies of New Materialisms. They are also a co-author of Challenging Institutionalization: A Propositional Toolkit for Doing Supervision of Artistic and Practice-Based Research (2025).

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.