¿The rest is history?

In the vision of CPS, Manifesta 8 is a series of ‘transmissions’ that critically use artistic, relational and media(ted) strategies to explore the specific geographic and socio-political structures that define reality, and its history. CPS searches out and promotes dialogues that simultaneously occupy and interrupt the very boundary conditions that define Manifesta 8’s framework, placing them in the public realm through the practices of media production, documentary, artistic research and aesthetic journalism.

In past editions, Manifesta has often focused on the axis between the West and the former East bloc. The aim of Manifesta 8 will be to engage with the north-south divide, specifically with Europe’s present-day boundaries with northern Africa and its interrelations with the Maghreb region.

One of the innovations arising from Manifesta 8 is based on the concept of collective curating, and the introduction of an artistic team made up of three groups of curators, composed of Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum(Egypt), Chamber of Public Secrets (Scandinavian countries, Italy, The U.K and Libanon) and tranzit.org (Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia ), responsible for both the thematic approach and the selection of artists. As a dynamic exhibition, Manifesta 8 can be seen to exist at an intersection, a place where the three curatorial collectives will respond to the challenges posed by notions of trans-regional and trans-continental dialogue, using different formats. These range from a series of televised debates (including two episodes of a popular talk-show on the Arabic Al Jazeera network), the publication of a 420-page Reader to plot the links between conditions, imaginaries and narratives in both post-colonial and post-Communist countries, and setting up an “incubator” to research the potential of producing a roaming, pan-African biennial.

For more information please go to the Manifesta 8 website – www.manifesta8.com