Manifesta 15 Announces Participants, Full List of Venues and Main Programme Elements

Image: Can Trinxet, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat. Photo © Manifesta 15 Barcelona Metropolitana | Helena Roig

Manifesta 15 Barcelona Metropolitana
September 8, 2024 – November 24, 2024
manifesta15.org

Manifesta 15 Barcelona Metropolitana, the European Nomadic Biennial, will open its 15th edition from the 8th of September until the 24th of November 2024. Known for its innovative approach to exploring urgent global issues through culture, this edition of Manifesta will shift to operating in a regionalised approach with a focus on how citizens can become more proactive in stimulating a socio-ecological transition in Catalonia.

For the first time in its history, Manifesta is operating in a decentralised manner in its geographical approach, as well as its curatorial and thematic methodology.  Manifesta 15 is developing its cultural projects and interventions across 12 Catalan cities together with an array of artistic representatives from the metropolitan region. The majority of the selected Manifesta 15 participants base their practices around ecological questions and socio-historical issues. Each participant is invited to work on a site-specific topic within the biennial conceptual framework. The Artistic Team has encouraged participants to delve into local archives, oral histories, and private and public genealogies to collectively question how local histories, colonialism and climate injustices were and still are interrelated.

The Three Clusters

The 78 days programme of Manifesta 15 is developed across three thematic clusters in the metropolitan region. The nodes of the Besòs, the Llobregat delta and Collserola mountain range and Vallès area, function as symbolic looking glasses to the rest of the Europe. These are the areas that geographically delimit the city and where the great future urban transformations will take place. A specially composed programme consisting of Manifesta 15 Focus Weeks and a traveling Mobile Structure will connect the 12 metropolitan cities and put each city into the spotlight.

The Manifesta 15 clusters bring together a variety of social and ecological projects by local and international artistic voices at multiple venues in multiple cities around three leading themes of the biennial: Balancing Conflicts, Cure and Care and Imagining Futures. The journey of each cluster commences at an extraordinary historical venue which symbolises its overarching theme. The Manifesta 15 all-inclusive ticket, which will go on sale at the end of May 2024 for the price of 15 euros, encourages visitors to explore all three clusters and all 12 cities, as it is valid for the entire duration of the biennial and for all the Manifesta 15 venues.

Participants

The Manifesta 15 Artistic Team composed by Hedwig Fijen, the director of Manifesta 15, includes Filipa Oliveira, Manifesta 15’s Creative Mediator and 11 artistic representatives; Ariadna Amat Garcia (Badalona), Penélope Cañizares Bellido (Cornellà de Llobregat), Cristina Castells Tort (El Prat de Llobregat), Raquel Morcillo (Granollers), Mireia Mascarell (L’Hospitalet de Llobregat), Gisel Noè (Mataró), Óscar Abril Ascaso (Sabadell), David Linares Ramos (Sant Adrià de Besòs), Joan González Cano (Santa Coloma de Gramenet), Andreu Dengra Carayol, (Sant Cugat del Vallès), Imma Vilches García (Terrassa).

Together, the Artistic Team is working on a programme spread across 16 venues and within public spaces throughout the region. Of the 43 participants announced today, 29 will present newly conceived work made especially for Manifesta 15. We are proud to highlight that 55% of the participants are local or based locally, further strengthening Manifesta 15’s approach to amplify regional voices reflecting upon the metropolitan landscape. Please refer to Annexe 1 to view the preliminary participant list.

As participants engage with the biennial’s conceptual framework, they are invited to confront the systemic injustices perpetuated by colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy. Through critical dialogue and artistic expression, Manifesta 15 fosters empathy, solidarity and collective action, challenging individuals to confront their complicity in systems of oppression, envision pathways toward liberation and imagine possible new futures. Filipa Oliveira, Manifesta 15 Creative Mediator

Archival presentation at the Gustavo Gili

Over the past two years, Manifesta 15 Barcelona Metropolitana has worked on a wide range of research projects delving into the region’s shared historical memories, genealogies, stories and educational practices. These research projects have been developed into a multi-formatted project which challenges dominant narratives and unearths subaltern perspectives, enriching our understanding of the region’s history. The archives hold significance on multiple levels – mental, material, spiritual, and historical from unheard voices and activation by diverse groups in society.

Housed at Manifesta 15’s headquarters Gustavo Gili during the biennial period, Manifesta’s director Hedwig Fijen has brought together different archival specialists to question the official narratives and open doors to a greater plurality. Spanish author and Princeton professor Germán Labrador will analyse the impact of the Spanish Civil War and Franco’s rule on cultural and social development. Researcher, curator and founder of Radio Africa, Tania Safura Adam will revise collective memory through a “black archive” exhibition, podcast, and Biblioteca Anticolonial materials, reflecting the history of the metropolis from black perspectives. Lastly the Manifesta 15 Education Department presents research on Catalan educational renewal movements, highlighting the impact of education and pedagogy on social transformation.

Manifesta 15 Education Programme: Fora per fer escola

Manifesta’s Education and Mediation programme emerges from collaborative research with local actors, exploring overlooked aspects of educational and cultural histories that help envisioning alternative futures. In Manifesta 15, the research centres on Catalan progressive educational movements, both prior to and following the Franco dictatorship, employing artistic research, mediation, public programming and professional networks. It aims to illuminate ideas and practices that can contribute to contemporary pedagogical and eco-social transformations, aligning with the biennial’s overarching themes: Balancing Conflicts, Cure and Care and Imagining Futures.

Entitled “Fora per fer escola” this inititive consolidates various projects forming the biennial’s education and mediation programme. Translated from Catalan, the title embodies multiple significant dimensions: the idea of taking education outdoors, setting precedents and being expelled for creating a school. Drawing from the histories of Escola de Bosc, Escola del Mar, Vil·la Joana, Batec teachers collective and Escoles en Lluita, the programme includes four artistic projects, alongside archival research to be presented in the Gustavo Gili. Moreover, the programme has initiated professional networking projects such as Teachers Camps and the Territorial Working Group, along with an extensive mediation programme.

In imagining a more just and sustainable future, Manifesta 15 will close the biennial in November 2024 with an Open Forum that investigates how best practices for a bottom up, decentralised cultural ecosystem have been built and tested by Manifesta 15 and can shape an alternative eco-social Magna Carta, an idea by Sergio Pardo, Manifesta 15’s first Creative Mediator, for the future of the metropolitan region.