Bienal Manifesta opens in Ruhr with Portuguese artists

Sunder the theme “This is not a church” (“This is not a church”), this year’s edition invites more than 100 artists from 30 countries to occupy 12 disgruntled churches distributed by Duisburg, Essen, Gelsenkirchen and Bochum, proposing new uses for spaces that have lost their religious function.

Among the Portuguese participants are Pedro Cabrita Reis, Sara Bichão and the Pele collective, whose projects are supported by DGArtes.

“There are 12 churches spread across four different cities that have been reinvented by artists,” Lusa Patrícia Salvação Barreto, a cultural advisor at the Embassy of Portugal in Berlin, told Lusa Patrícia Salvação Barreto, after the official presentation ceremony held on Saturday.

The ceremony also officially announced the choice of Coimbra to host the Manifesta 17 in 2028.

The event also featured the presence of the Portuguese ambassador in Berlin, Magdalena Fischer, the Secretary of State for Culture, Alberto Santos, and the mayor of Coimbra, Ana Abrunhosa.

According to Patricia Salvação Barreto, one of the most striking proposals is that of the collective PELE, which developed a participatory project involving dozens of residents of the surrounding area of one of the churches.

“ They called the community that surrounds the church, consulted and asked for the participation of 60 people ", told.

From the suggestions gathered, the artists created a public space designed for different generations, with areas for children and living areas for the remaining inhabitants of the neighborhood.

“ People did not know each other, they became friends ", reported.

More than the artistic installation itself, the artists themselves highlight the bonds created during the process.

“ They say that the most relevant balance of the intervention is not so much the work of art they leave there, but the friendship they leave there ", he said.

According to Patricia Salvação Barreto, the members of the collective have now returned to the place to cook and share Portuguese food with the project participants.

Pedro Cabrita Reis presents a sculptural intervention in Bochum, consisting of vertical aluminum structures placed outside a disgruntled church.

Sara Bichão, in turn, developed an installation in Essen based on objects found and discarded, seeking to assign them new meanings inside the building.

“ He joined them all and tried to resacralize the church at the expense of the junction of these objects ", explained.

The diversity of approaches is one of the brands of the biennial, which brings together projects of art, architecture, community participation and social experimentation.

One of the works mentioned by Patricia Salvação Barreto was an intervention by women of Turkish origin who prepared meals for visitors, transforming the exhibition space into a meeting and sharing place.

“ Whoever wanted to go there and they gave a little ", told.

Created in the 1990s, the Manifesta is distinguished by changing the host city in each edition, promoting projects related to the social, urban and cultural specificities of the territories that host the event.

Coimbra's choice to receive the 2028 edition was announced this week and represents the first time the biennial will take place in Portugal.

Manifesta 16 runs until October 4 and will occupy for 105 days old religious and industrial spaces in the Ruhr region, one of the largest metropolitan areas in Europe.