The Night of Ideas, a free late-night event featuring top public intellectuals and performers from the U.S., France and around the world, is a marathon of philosophical debates, music performances, screenings, readings, and more. Initiated and coordinated by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy together with EUNIC New York, will take place in Villa Albertine in Manhattan and Brooklyn Public Library.
Night of Ideas is back in person this year!
New this year: Start your Night of Ideas with a bus journey from Villa Albertine headquarters in Manhattan to Brooklyn Public Library where you’ll enjoy a private 1:1 discussion with a Night of Ideas artist or speaker sitting next to you.
Speakers and performers on the buses and in Brooklyn will include musician and writer Patti Smith, Goncourt Prize-winning novelist Leïla Slimani, Director of the Lenape Center Joe Baker, Chief AI Scientist at Meta Yann LeCun, political scientist Claire Sagan, and more.
The Czech Republic will be represented by researcher, writer and curator Hana Janečková and graphic designer Anežka Minaříková.
Program of the event:
4pm: Small reception and welcome of speakers and European partners participating in the night of ideas at Villa Albertine headquarters (972 Fifth Avenue, New York)
5pm-6:30pm: First bus departure to Brooklyn Public Library from Villa Albertine. Speakers will be asked to conduct two separate one-to-one conversations with the person sitting next to them on the theme of the night.
6:30pm: Welcome at the Brooklyn Public Library / door opens
7pm: Beginning of the event at the Brooklyn Public Library, opening performance, introduction, and keynote speech.
7:30pm to midnight: talks, musical performances, projections…
More about the event and registration here: https://nightofideas.org/new-york/
Hana Janečková is a researcher, writer and curator based in FAMU, Academy of Performing Arts, Prague, Czech Republic. She is currently Fulbright Scholar 2021-22 based at Rutgers University researching ecology, feminism, technologies and the politics of care in contemporary art.
She will discuss the strategies and tactics that artists have used to deal with experiences of sickness, health, chronicity and (self-) transformation in recent and contemporary art. In light of successive Covid lockdowns, and the focus will be on the body and our thinking about health and cure – in the wider scale of its eco-feminist belonging. She will look at the ways artists have tried to respond to the health crisis by focusing on the role of art as radical therapy and peer support, but also on artworks attempting to re-imagine the way we think about our health today.
The focus of Anežka Minaříková's work are projects that cross the boundaries of graphic design. She emphasizes the interconnection of the digital and physical worlds, professional research and communication with the general public. She is interested in the active involvement of technology in the creative process.
Anežka was nominated for the Czech Grand Design (Sleep, Photographer festival) several times for her work, and last year she won 2nd place in the Graphic Design category. She holds a bachelor's degree from the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (Graphic Design and New Media) and an MFA degree from Yale University School of Art. In addition to her practice in the Czech Republic and the US, she teaches graphic design in a correctional facility within the Yale Prison Education Initiative and at the Parson School of Design.
