Virtual Colloquium: Hajnalka Somogyi – “On ‘OFF-Biennale’ and Radical Kindness”

We will be joined online on Zoom by Hajnalka Somogyi this Thursday, June 11th, for a presentation titled “On ‘OFF-Biennale’ and Radical Kindness” as part of the Virtual Colloquium at Berlin University of the Arts. Founded as a grassroots, community-based art project and alternative platform for critical and socially engaged artistic practices and discourse under Viktor Orbán’s illiberal regime in Hungary, OFF-Biennale Budapest has, over the past twelve years, evolved into an independent platform with strong networks across both the local civic and cultural sphere and the international art scene. In this talk, Hajnalka Somogyi will present OFF through the lens of recent political changes in Hungary and the possibilities and challenges they create, reflecting also on the notion of radical kindness.

Hajnalka Somogyi is a curator of contemporary art and an art manager. Since 2014, Somogyi has worked as leader/director and co-curator of OFF-Biennale Budapest, a project that she initiated. She was professor at the Art and Design Theory Institute of the Budapest Metropolitan University between 2021 and 2026. She was guest curator of the Tropical Lab programme at LaSalle College of the Arts in Singapore in 2023 and 2024. In 2013-2014, she was editor of artmagazin.hu. Between 2009-2012, she was curator at Ludwig Museum—Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest, and between 2001-2006 at Trafo—House of Contemporary Arts, Budapest. She co-founded the independent art initiatives Dinamo and Impex, both in Budapest. She curated numerous exhibitions both in Hungary and abroad.

Please find below the Zoom link to join, which will be the same for all online sessions this semester:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82954605489?pwd=VP3XBDzVogeuQtLWaXbWEFpm9ObxiQ.1

Meeting-ID: 829 5460 5489
Kenncode: 079532