Maaike Lauwaert has been the visual arts curator at Stroom Den Haag, an independent centre for art and architecture in the Netherlands, for over a year. From 2003 on she has been writing about contemporary art for various magazines in the Netherlands and Belgium. She is also the secretary for an interest group for small Dutch art spaces called De Zaak Nu. Before starting at Stroom, she worked at the Mondriaan Foundation (a funding body) and completed a PhD. in cultural sciences at the University of Maastricht.