‘FORLORN HOPE – NEW DREAMS : AVANT-GARDE AND SOCIETY’

The ‘avant-garde’ is the central theme of the artistic program of BOZAR in 2016 and 2017. BOZAR AGORA will organize a series of debates and lectures that focus on the ‘avant garde in society’. Four themes will be explored: politics, economics, science and education.

The title of this series is ‘Forlorn hope’. This was the name used by the British army to describe the ‘avant garde’ , a group of soldiers that made the first attack in an effort to breach enemy lines. The soldiers of the ‘forlorn hope’ were likely to be killed at the first strike, but some of them survived long enough to seize a foothold that could be reinforced.
The term comes from the Dutch ‘verloren hoop’, literally translated as "lost troop", but also as “lost hope”.