Office for Contemporary Art Norway appoints Hanne Mugaas as Head of Programme

We’re thrilled to share that Hanne Mugaas is joining OCA as our new Head of Programme. As the Head of Programme, Hanne will be responsible for the development and execution of OCA’s public programme and publishing while actively working across the organisation to strengthen collaborations with new and established networks of artists, curators, and other art professionals as part of expanding international opportunities for contemporary art from Norway. Hanne will assume the position of Head of Programme at OCA starting 1 October 2025.

Hanne Mugaas was the Founding Director of Kunsthall Stavanger, where she served as the driving force from its establishment in 2013. Under her leadership, the institution flourished—earning both national and international acclaim for its bold and innovative exhibition program.

At Kunsthall Stavanger, Mugaas has curated numerous exhibitions, including the recent Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings: Bleak House (2023–24), Jumana Manna: Break, Take, Erase, Tally (2024), and Mark Corfield-Moore: We Speak Chicken (2024–25). She has presented major survey exhibitions, including Judith Bernstein: Rising (2016) and Kiki Kogelnik: Inner Life (2017), both of which featured significant works that had not been shown since the 1960s. Her additional curatorial projects span a wide range of large-scale solo exhibitions and commissions with artists such as Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca, Emma Talbot, Farah Al Qasimi, Hanne Lippard, Jamian Juliano-Villani, Peggy Ahwesh, Yngve Holen, and Nicolas Party, among many others.

Mugaas’ editorial work includes Judith Bernstein: Rising, published by Mousse, —the first publication to contextualize Bernstein’s expansive oeuvre within the broader framework of feminist art history and American socio-political discourse, and Kiki Kogelnik: Inner Life, published by Hatje Cantz in collaboration with the Kiki Kogelnik Foundation.

Prior to Kunsthall Stavanger, Mugaas spent a decade in New York, where she held curatorial roles at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). She also founded the project space Art Since the Summer of ’69. Since 2004, she has curated exhibitions and projects at venues such as Studio Voltaire, London; Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), London; Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Philadelphia; Performa 11 and 9, New York; Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen; and Kolnischer Kunstverein, Cologne.

Mugaas has since 2013 expanded Kunsthall Stavanger’s reach through digital programming, commissioning projects for Kunsthall Stavanger’s online platform, including the online performance Lina Viste Grønli, Peter Child and Elaine Chew: Practicing Haydn (Piano Sonata in EB, HOB XVI:45 Finale) (2013) as part of Performa 13, the participatory digital project Stine Janvin: Mouthpiece (2022), and the online conference 7x7 ( a collaboration with Rhizome at the New Museum, New York, 2020), among others.

Outside of her work at Kunsthall Stavanger, Mugaas’ broader contributions to the field include serving on the boards of Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) and Bergen Assembly. She has participated in numerous international panels and juries, including the Frieze London Stand Prize, the Nam June Paik Award, and Glasgow International’s Across the City Panel.