Manifesta 12, taking place in Palermo in 2018, is the latest installment of the world’s only nomadic biennial of contemporary art and culture. Throughout its 11 editions, Manifesta has always been politically and socially engaged, beyond producing an experimental and emerging art experience.

With the title “The Planetary Garden. Cultivating Coexistence”, it is inspired in the botanical garden of Palermo, Orto Botanico, that was founded in 1789 as a laboratory to nurture, study, test, mix and gather diverse species, to look at the idea of the “garden”, exploring its capacity to aggregate difference and to compose life out of movement and migration.

Throughout history, the city of Palermo has been a laboratory for diversity and cross-pollination. Continuous migration – from the Ancient Greeks, the Arabs and the Normans to the recent arrival from Northern Africa, South East Asia, and the Middle East – has constantly redefined the city and its people. Manifesta is the European Nomadic Biennial, held in a different host city every two years. It is a major international art event, attracting visitors from all over the world. Manifesta is the go-to place for discovering emerging artists, thought-provoking ideas, new artworks specially commissioned for the event, and creative experiences in dialogue with spectacular locations of each host city.

The City of Palermo was important for Manifesta’s selection board for its representation of two important themes that identify contemporary Europe: migration and climate change and how these issues impact our cities. The multi-layered and deeply condensed history of Palermo – being occupied by almost every European civilization and having long-term connections with Northern Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean over the last 2000 years – has left its traces throughout this multi-cultural society at the heart of the Mediterranean area.

AC/E, as in previous editions, support the participation of Andrés Jaque, who is part of the team of creative mediators (curators) of Manifesta 12 and the Spanish artists:
• Jordi Colomer presenting his new specific work for Palermo “Confessione”.
• HUGE Studio that has designed a bus that will travel through several neighborhoods of Palermo in order to enable a dialogue with the inhabitants during Manifesta 12.
• Cooking Sections (Daniel Fernandez Pascual / Alon Schwabe) that has created a file of dry irrigation techniques that works as a public platform.
• Cristina Lucas who presents the video installation “The Unending Lightning” (2015 -), a work in progress that compiles a historical account of air attacks with civilian victims from 1912 to the present. (AC/E press-release)