Manifesta15

The highlight of the fifteenth edition of the European Nomadic Biennial will be a programme of activities in eleven municipalities in the metropolitan region in 2024.

The end of the Cold War at the start of the 1990s gave way to a series of political, economic and social changes. The Manifesta was created in response, a platform for dialogue between art and society which will be holding its fifteen edition in Barcelona and 10 metropolitan area cities.

The bid presented by Barcelona and a further ten municipalities from the metropolitan region was accepted by the Manifesta council, which means the city will be playing host to the fifteen edition in 2024. Barcelona’s bid offers an ecosystem of visual arts and the city’s public and private cultural fabric for boosting the event’s challenges.

The designation was presented on 3 December 2020, with speeches from the Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, the Deputy Mayor of Culture, Education, Science and Community, Joan Subirats, the Mayor of Mataró, David Bote, the Director of Manifesta, Hedwig Fijen, and the Director of the Virreina Centre de la Imatge, Valentín Roma.

The Manifesta – European Nomadic Biennial will be proposing a series of activities for two years, including studies, discussions, expectation workshops and seminars for building a process of reflection around art and urban planning on the change of era and the effects it is having on the great dilemmas of the current world.

The highlight of the fifteenth edition will be a final three-month programme in Barcelona and the metropolitan area’s municipalities that were part of the bid.

The bid from Barcelona and its metropolitan area as the Manifesta star feature constitutes the deployment of one of the action lines of Barcelona City Council¡s Cultural Rights Plan corresponding to Measure #2: Grassroots culture and cultural sectors: the right to creation, experimentation, research and cultural production. 

Manifesta, a European-integration project

Each Manifesta edition is noted for its research and reflection on the emerging development of contemporary art and includes innovations in curatorial practices, mediation and education and in search of commitment from the local, national and international public to new aspects and forms of artistic expression.

Biennial literally means “two years” and can be used for describing any two-year event. It is a term commonly used in the world of art for large-format international events and artistic exhibitions held every two years.

Manifesta, however, avoids the concept of art Biennial and aims to provoke a large community work process that leaves a collective mark on the artistic sector and on the cities where it is held.