In Spain, the idea is widespread that Kosovo is a failed project, a minefield abandoned to its fate after the last Balkan conflict. It is true that the country (recognized by 97 members of the 193 United Nations) is not among the most thriving in the West. But the capital, Pristina, has little to envy other European cities of its size. It is vigorous, open, young, night owl and hosts an emerging cultural sector.
Pristina has just said goodbye as the venue for the Manifesta nomadic art biennial, which will stop in Barcelona in 2024. The Catalan capital has some lessons to learn from this city that has been a crossroads of civilizations.
A wild rave in the Palace of Youth, of communist architecture, closed last Sunday the fourteenth edition of Manifesta. A few hours earlier, in a post-industrial landscape such as the chimneys of Paral lel or Sant Adrià, or any Catalan textile colony, the director of the festival, Hedwig Fijen, had proclaimed that the one in the Kosovar capital had been "the best Manifesta of history”.
There was no staging of the relay to Barcelona. Just a night of partying not without melancholy, especially among the young people who have made the event possible. Manifesta 14 has brought this vibrant Balkan city into the world's attention, and it remains to be seen how much of a legacy it will remain. The most obvious is a foundation promoted by the biennial that will manage the brand new Center for Narrative Practices.
The Manifesta Barcelona team is already preparing an edition that does not yet have dates. It will last one hundred days and could be held in spring or autumn, depending, among other factors, on the city's cultural calendar and events.
In recent months, Manifesta representatives have visited various places in the metropolitan area looking for possible venues, but also a large central stage that does not have to be in the municipality of Barcelona, although it is close. It should be remembered that Manifesta 15 will be held in ten cities in addition to the capital: l'Hospitalet, Terrassa, Sabadell, Badalona, Mataró, Sant Cugat, Cornellà, El Prat, Granollers and Santa Coloma de Gramenet.
The difficulties in getting around a metropolitan area as unstructured as Barcelona's are worrying the organizers. Fijen herself admitted as much during a visit to the dilapidated Grand Hotel Pristina, Manifesta 14's one-of-a-kind headquarters.
Barcelona has a lot to look at if it wants Manifesta, as happened in Pristina, to become a relevant event. The challenge is enormous: not only is there the problem of the dispersion of venues, but also the fact that in Barcelona many events are organized during the year that compete for the attention of the public and the media. For example, in 2024, it will also host the sailing America's Cup.
From the outset, Barcelona has a disadvantage with respect to Pristina that is difficult to solve, because it does not depend on it, but on the central government. While any Spaniard can travel to the Kosovar capital (and is well received there), Kosovars cannot enter Spain, a country that does not recognize Kosovo as an independent state. This is particularly serious for an event like Manifesta, which instigates exchanges between the cities that have hosted it.
But that does not imply that Barcelona City Council and the city's cultural actors do not have a role to play in allowing Kosovar artists and organizers to travel to Catalonia. For example, they could pressure the Government to facilitate their entry into Spain, despite not having a recognized passport. It would be about inviting artists to participate in cultural events.
In this context, the mayor of Pristina, Përparim Rama, is convinced, in statements to La Vanguardia, that harmony between cities is "a preliminary step to favor that the states end up understanding each other".
On the other hand, Pristina has had an ally that has helped to attract an audience to the biennial that is not the usual museum audience. Pop megastar Dua Lipa, of Kosovar origin, visited the festival in the summer, posted a post on Instagram from one of the rooms of the Grand Hotel and behind her came a tsunami of fans who, mobile in hand, wanted to emulate the artistic experience of his idol.
Avoiding easy comparisons – Barcelona also has a pop icon in Rosalía – it is a real challenge for the city to try to attract the general public. Manifesta is not an elitist proposal. More than 600,000 visitors have passed through the Pristina venues. For this, it is inexcusable that the 11 Barcelona city councils that are hosts, together with the organization, look for formulas to turn the biennial into a civic festival that transcends the usual art circles.
In the case of Barcelona city, it is also urgent to learn how to facilitate the work of festivals, as Pristina has done. It makes no sense that those responsible have to go on a pilgrimage through endless windows, in different departments, to solve their logistical problems. An alternative would be to create a replica of the Barcelona Film Commission, which has helped the city become a preferred setting for filming. A Barcelona Festival Commission would be very welcome by the organizers of the major events taking place in the city, as well as those to come.
When asked what he would advise Barcelona after his experience with the festival, the mayor of Pristina said that the city should hold a kind of jam session between all its cultural, political and social agents to determine what its shortcomings are and see how Manifesta can help make them visible and, in some cases, even solve them.
In this line, at the time of taking stock of Manifesta 14, the director of the biennial announced a change of orientation: given the positive experience lived in Pristina –a city that was yet to be made–, the festival will abandon “the monolithic idea of the curator ” that decides which works of art are shown and will try to encourage, instead, that the host cities themselves ask themselves what their challenges are for a sustainable future.
Urban planning and education, he announced, will be two of the main axes of Manifesta in Barcelona, as have been the creation of green corridors in Kosovo or the recovery of old spaces that, in Tito's Yugoslavia, had had a use restricted to the elites.
Barcelona's incompetence in creating an authentic metropolitan area, due to the persistence of stubborn administrative feudalisms that undermine the idea of Greater Barcelona, constitutes a good starting point, if what it is about is taking advantage of an event like Manifesta to rethink.
