Giovanna Bianco & Pino Valente / Terra di me
Manifesta is the European Nomadic Biennial, held in a different host city every two years. It is a major international art event, attracting visitors from all over the world. Manifesta is the go-to place for discovering emerging artists, thought-provoking ideas, new artworks especially commissioned for the event, and creative experiences in dialogue with spectacular locations of each host city.
Manifesta 12, the twelfth edition of the European nomadic biennial, with this edition’s main theme The Planetary Garden, opened in Palermo this week and runs through November 4, 2018.
In total, the biennial will consist of more than 30 newly commissioned works, public installations, performances, and urban interventions and will take place in more than 15 iconic venues in Palermo.
Lydia Ourahmane / The Third Choir, 2014
Lovett / Codagnone. DRIFT
Ezio Ferreri
The participants who will take part in the Manifesta 12 program include: Brazilian artist, Maria Thereza Alves, with an installation at Palazzo Butera dedicated to the floral syncretism of Sicily; and pioneer of Nigerian contemporary art performance, Jelili Atiku, with a processional performance throughout the streets of Palermo. French contemporary landscape architect and philosopher Gilles Clément, who inspired the biennial’s curatorial concept with his book The Planetary Garden will engage in a collaboration with the multidisciplinary design studio Coloco and create an urban garden in the Zen district of Palermo.
A Sahel Opera / Photo Francesco Bellinafrom
The Peng! Collective
Marinella Senatore Performance / Photo Francesco Bellinafrom
Additionally the biennial program will include: London-based collective Cooking Sections, with a project on agricultural irrigation systems held in various venues; Irish, real-time computer graphics artist, John Gerrard, who will present his works between Palazzo Ajutamicristo and Palazzo Forcella De Seta; Swiss artist, Uriel Orlow, with a video installation at Palazzo Butera focused on the value of memory and the evocative power of botany; visual artist and artistic director of Riwaq Biennale, Khalil Rabah, who, inspired by the Palermo markets, will reproduce his own market of different artefacts at the Botanical Garden with assemblages and sculptures; and Belgian architect collective, Rotor, with an urban intervention in the area of Pizzo Sella, north of Palermo.
Finally, two Italian artists are revealed today: Marinella Senatore, with an urban procession on 16 June featuring a collective dance movement in the streets of the historic centre of Palermo; and Giorgio Vasta, the writer and screenwriter from Palermo, with the project City Scripts, a digital app dedicated to the narration of the city.
John Gerrard / Video simulation
Malin Franzen
Uriel Orlow / Wishing Trees, 2018
Collateral Events
The seventy-one Collateral Events, running in parallel to the Manifesta 12 biennial, have been rigorously selected from an international open call. The 631 applications largely came from Palermo and Sicily with additional international private and public institutions, non-profit organisations, artists, and art professionals. The jury selecting the final projects was composed of international and local arts professionals.
Each of the proposals were evaluated in terms of being sound interdisciplinary cultural projects taking place during the same period as Manifesta 12 while also adhering to the same high-quality standards as the nomadic biennial.
Michael Wang / Mariopteris Upper Silesia, 2018
Rayyane Tabet
Richard Vijgen / Connected by Air, 2018
5x5x5
This new model of what was formerly called Manifesta Parallel Events programme, is designed as a compliment to the M12 Collateral Events, developing long-term exchanges and networking between Palermo’s cultural communities and Manifesta’s diverse international network of artists, galleries, academic, and educational institutions.
Like the M12 Collateral Events, the 5x5x5 program extends the reach of Manifesta 12 into neighborhoods, schools, historic churches, palaces and unique buildings; each carrying an imprint from the multicultural history of the city, whose sum total form the Palermo we know today. The goal of 5x5x5 is to encourage cultural continuity, prolonging Manifesta’s commitment and work in 2018 by creating sustainable collaborations with the aim of a long-lasting legacy for Palermo after closing Manifesta.
Manifesta 12 / Palermo
June 16 – November 4, 2018
Please visit the Manifesta 12 site >
