Dr Maja Fowkes

Academic position: Co-Director Postsocialist Art Centre, Principal Research Fellow, Socialist Anthropocene in the Visual Arts

Department: Institute of Advanced Studies

Email: m.fowkes@ucl.ac.uk

UCL Website: Dr Maja Fowkes

Biography

Dr Maja Fowkes is an art historian, curator and co-director of the Post-socialist Art Centre (PACT) at the Institute of Advanced Studies, UCL. Her publications include Art and Climate Change (Thames & Hudson, 2022), Central and Eastern European Art Since 1950 (Thames & Hudson, 2020), Ilona Németh: Eastern Sugar (Sternberg Press, 2021) and The Green Bloc: Neo-Avant-Garde and Ecology under Socialism (2015). Recent curatorial projects include the exhibitions ‘Colliding Epistemes’ at Bozar Brussels (2022) and ‘Potential Agrarianisms’ at Kunsthalle Bratislava (2021). She is Principal Research Fellow for the Socialist Anthropocene in the Visual Arts (SAVA), a research project funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee.

Research Projects

  • European Research Council Consolidator Grant for ‘The Socialist Anthropocene in the Visual Arts,’ at Institute of Advanced Studies UCL, 2022-27
  • Getty Foundation Connecting Art Histories grant for ‘Confrontations: Sessions in East European Art History,’ at Institute of Advanced Studies UCL, 2018-22
  • Erste Foundation grant for ‘The Anthropocene Reading Room,’ at the Translocal Institute for Contemporary Art, 2014-16 
  • Creative Europe grant for ‘The Danube River School,’ at Translocal Institute for Contemporary Art in partnership with the Green Art Lab Alliance, 2013-15

Selected publications

  • Art and Climate Change, Thames & Hudson World of Art series, 2022
  • Central and Eastern European Art Since 1950, Thames & Hudson World of Art series, 2020
  • Ilona Németh: Eastern Sugar, Sternberg Press, 2020
  • The Green Bloc: Neo-avant-garde Art and Ecology under Socialism, CEU Press, 2015. 

For a full list of publications, see Maja’s Iris profile.

Selected exhibitions

  • ‘Colliding Epistemes,’ Bozar Brussels, Belgium, May-June 2022
  • ‘Potential Agrarianisms,’ Kunsthalle Bratislava, Slovakia, August-October 2021
  • ‘Walking without Footprints,’ tranzit.sk, Bratislava, December 2015-February 2016
  • ‘Like a Bird: Avian Encounters in the Age of Ecology,’ Trafó Budapest / tranzit.ro Bucharest, 2014
  • ‘Loophole to Happiness,’ Muzeum Sztuki Lodz / Trafó Budapest / Futura Prague 2011

maja fowkes