Nick Aikens
About Nick Aikens
Nick Aikens is a curator, researcher, writer, editor and educator. He is currently the Managing Editor and Research Responsible for L’Internationale Online, the research and publishing platform for L’Internationale the European federation of museums, universities and arts organisations. He assumed his role In August 2023 as part of the four year, EU funded project ’Musuems of the Commons’. HDK Valand is a partner of the federation and hosts L’Internationale Online.
In 2023 he completed his PhD under the title ‘Rewinding Internationalism: An Exhibitionary Inquiry on the Political Imaginary’ at HDK Valand. He was previously Curator at the Van Abbemuseum (2012-2023) where he worked on numerous exhibitions and publications as well as leading the research programme Deviant Practice (2016-2019). From 2012-2019 he was a tutor at the Dutch Art Institute in Arnhem and in 2023-24 he is Guest Professor in the department of Exhibitions and Scenography at Karlsruhe University. At HDK Valand he is the Responsible for MA Forum - a cross departmental seminar series introducing students to research through artistic practice, as well as teaching on the course Writing and Publishing in Contemporary Art.
Ongoing research interests include:
- The relationship between exhibitions, processes of inquiry and the political
- Artistic and exhibitionary practices on, with and through radio
- Internationalism and the political imaginary
- Corpoliteracy in contemporary art and institutional practices
- Art and the ‘usological’ turn
Current Research Project:
Museum of the Commons (EACEA, 2023-2027) with L'Internationale museum confederation
Exhibition projects include:
co-curator of 'Near East Far West', Kyiv Biennial, MSN Warsaw, 2025
co-curator with Céline Condorelli, 'Antennae: Frequenceis form the Archive', ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, 2024
curated with Yolande Zola Zoli van der Heide 'Everything worthwhile is done with other people', Positions #7 with Ellen Gallagher and Edgar Cleijne; Metro54 & ABC Noorderlicht College (with Yahaira Gezius, Pris Roos, Mohale Motlali, among others); NTU (Nolan Oswald Dennis, Tabita Rezaire and Bogosi Sekhukhuni); Olaniyi Studio (Yussef Agbo-Ola) and Amakaba (Tabita Rezaire); Subversive Film and Jatiwangi Art Factory (JaF), Van Abbemusuem, 2023
'Rewinding Internationalism' Netwerk Aalst, Van Abbemuseum and Villa Arson, 2022-2023
'Yael Davids: A Daily Practice', Van Abbemuseum, 2020
Telling Untold Stories. Positions #5 with Al Solh, Mounira Al Solh, Mercedes Azpilicueta, Anna Dasovic, Em’kal Eyongakpa, Quinsy Gario, Van Abbemuseum, 2019-2020
'Rasheed Araeen: A Retrospective', Van Abbemusuem, MAMCO, Geneva, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and Garage Musuem of Contemporary Art, 2017-19
'The Place is Here' (Nottingham Contemporary with Sam Thorne and Nicola Guy, South London Gallery and Middlesbrough Institute of Art, 2016-17
'Through the Fog: Descripting the Present', State of Concept, 2016
'The Museum of Arte Utile', initiated by Tania Bruguera, Van Abbemuseum, 2013-14
Editorial projects include:
with Nkule Mabaso, The Climate Reader: Propositions, Poetics, Operations, L'Internationale Online, 2026
with Sara Buraya Bined et al., Collective Study in Times of Emergency, L'Interntionale Online, 2024
with Yael Davids et al. (eds.), I Will Be Your Last Teacher. A Work Book. Yael Davids, Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2023
Rewinding Internationalism, Eindhoven: Van Abbemuseum, 2023
With Yolande Zol Zoli van der Heide, I Think My Body Feels, I Feel My Body Thinks: On Corpoliteracy, Van Abbemuseum, 2022
with Kjell Caminha et al. (eds.), On The Question of Exhibition, 1, 2 and 3, PARSE, 2021
with Jyoti Mistry and Corina Ipera (eds.), Living With Ghosts:Legacies of Colonialism and Fascism, L’Internationale Online, 2019
with Dr Elzabeth Robles, The Place is Here: The Work of Black Artist in 1980s Britain, Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2019
with Teresa Grandas et al (eds.), The Long 1980s. Constellations of Art, Politics and Identities, Amsterdam: Valiz and L’Internationale, 2018
Rasheed Araeen, Geneva: JR P Ringier, 2017
with Thomas Lange et al, (eds.), What the Use? Constellations of Art, History and Knowledge, Amsterdam: Valiz, 2016
Too Much World: The Films of Hito Steyerl, Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2015
Recent public programmes and conferences include:
'Collective Study in Times of Emergency', de appel, Amsterdam, 2025
with susan pui san lok / lok pui san and Scarlett Lösch, 'Transforming Collections, Rewinding Internationalism', Van Abbemuseum, April 2023
with Yolande Zola Zoli van der Heide and Steven ten Thije, 'Change Feeling', Van Abbemuseum, July 2022
with Nathalie Suck, 'Transmitting / Documenting / Narrating. Performance Practice and the Exhibition as a Site of Research', Gothenburg University, October 2020
with Nav Haq and Nora Mahammed, 'Considering Monoculture', de Buren, Brussels, February 2020