Manifesta 15, the European biennial of nomadic art, which will be held between September 8 and November 24 in Barcelona and the metropolitan area, will have as its main venues the Three Chimneys in Besòs, the Monastery of Sant Cugat in Collserola and La Ricarda in Llobregat, although the program of exhibitions and activities will radiate to many other spaces in l'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Terrassa, Badalona, Sabadell, Mataró, Sant Cugat del Vallès, Cornellà, el Prat de Llobregat, Granollers and Santa Coloma de Gramenet , in addition to Barcelona “It will be the largest and very different from all those carried out previously,” said the founder and director of Manifesta, Hedwig Fijen, who has also announced the name of the person who will be its curator, or “creative mediator.” ”, the Portuguese Filipa Oliveira, a visual arts programmer from the city of Almada, who will work with an artistic team that includes representatives of the twelve cities involved.
After a first phase in which it has been working with ten groups to detect and “critically explore” the problems and challenges of Barcelona and its metropolitan area, Manifesta 15 will be structured around three thematic axes, each of which will be developed in one of the chosen clusters. Thus, Las Tres Chimeneas, headquarters of the planned Catalunya Mèdia City (a large audiovisual, digital and video game hub) will have the theme Imagining futures, and according to the Minister of Culture of the Generalitat Natàlia Garriga, the activities will take place both in the turbine hall, an unknown space that few have had the opportunity to visit, like outside. Caring and being cared for, another of the thematic areas of Manifesta, will have the Monastery of Sant Cugat as its epicenter, and finally Balancing conflicts will open the doors of La Ricarda, the family house that the rationalist architect Antoni Bonet designed for Ricardo Gomis and whose proximity to the Prat airport ended up making it unlivable.
Also playing an important role will be the Besòs River, the Mataró Art Contemporani, which occupies the old city prison, the old Vapor Buxeda Vell factory in Sabadell, the Égara Headquarters in Terrassa Roca Umbert in Granollers and Can Trinxet in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat. For its part, the former Gustavo Gili publishing house in Barcelona will serve as the core of Manifesta 15, presenting archival projects focused on the colonial past and its repercussions, the countercultural movements during the rise and fall of the Franco dictatorship, and the stories of Catalan educational renewal.
In addition to Councilor Garriga, at the presentation of the headquarters, the councilor for Culture and Creative Industries of Barcelona City Council, Xavier Marcé, the delegate president of the Culture Area of the Diputació Candela López, the new Secretary of State for Culture Jordi Martí, as well as representatives of some of the town councils involved. Together they make a public contribution that exceeds eight million euros, of which 2,705,000 go to artistic projects, 2,235,913 to salaries and 1,524,600 to service fees.
Although the final program will not be announced until spring, Fijen announced the names of the ten projects promoted by artists or collectives that have been selected in an open call to which 262 applied. They are Claudia Pages, Jokkoo Collective, La Casa dels Futurs, Lola Lasurt, Matias Daporta, Metropolis, Nora Ancarola, Rosa Tharrats
It will be the third time that this artistic event will come to Spain, after the editions of San Sebastián (2004) and Murcia (2010), although in this case its scope of action (30 square kilometers and 5 million inhabitants) far exceeds all the carried out to date (Luxembourg, Saint Petersburg, Palermo, Marseille, Kosovo...). The one in 2026 will be held in the Ruhr area.
