The Top Manta has been selected to be present at the next edition of the Venice Architecture Biennale. Exactly the initiative of the People's Union of Street Vendors together with the Leve Productora studio aspires to represent Catalonia and the Balearic Islands in the Biennale, within the Collateral Events, with the project Following the Fish. As in previous editions, the Ramon Llull Institute -producer of the initiative- will present it to the curator of the Biennale, who, in the next few months, will announce whether it will be included in the framework of the Eventi Collateralli.
The initiative consists, through the vision of the vendors, in addressing issues such as migratory transit, the privatization of public space, feminism, the anti-racist fight or food sustainability. In short, it is a joint effort between anti-racist activism and architecture, in search of clues about the future of cities.
For the committee of experts for the selection process, chaired by Eva Franch i Gilabert, architect and co-artistic director of Model. Festival d'Arquitectures de Barcelona, the decision has been clear: “We have unanimously selected the project not only for its formulation of architecture as a project of social production at the exhibition level, but also as a project of transformation and vindication of the right to city for everyone The proposal eliminates the division between curatorship and participants, being a collective work in its conceptualization, process and formalization” (...) The jury values the courage, forcefulness and quality of the proposal that embraces necessary practices for a present in emergency which are a laboratory of the future”.
Top Manta is a fashion and accessories brand –ethical, social and supportive– created in 2017 by the Sindicat Popular de Venedors Ambulants de Barcelona. For its part, Leve Productora is a Catalan architecture and film studio, with a clear social vocation based on creativity and activism.
The next edition (the 18th) of the Venice Architecture Biennale will take place between May 20 and November 26, 2023 and the theme chosen by its artistic director, the Ghanaian-Scottish Lesley Lokko, is The Laboratory of the future , with Africa as the protagonist.
