In this lecture, Hlavajova explores the notions of instituting and extituting otherwise as the processes of aesthetico-political institutional reordering in the face of the current conditions of “impossibility.” Centering on the project Trainings for the Not-Yet, co-convened by BAK and artist Jeanne van Heeswijk in 2019 and 2020 as “an exhibition as a series of trainings for a future of being together otherwise,” she speculates how the artistic practices of thinking how things are, imagining how things could be otherwise, and collective tactical embodying of these imaginaries—as if that were possible—entangle with what is “yet-to come.”

Let’s take the institutional philosophy of BAK—thinking about how things are, imagining how they could be otherwise, and enacting these imaginaries to life—as a possible definition of artistic and curatorial research. From within this understanding of research as a post-disciplinary inquiry entwining critical epistemologies, creative practices, and tactics of making things public, we will examine the latter—“making public.” Together, we will speculate on how to bring our work outside of intellectual enclosures and contribute to the mobilizations of public life in defense of equality and social justice. We will use the lens of disillusionment—albeit in the positive sense, as “letting go of illusions” (R. Solnit)—to work both against and in spite of the contemporary socio-political dynamics of blatant right-wing populism.