04-07-18 15)58Manifesta 12 | Bilingual | Metal Magazine

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Palermo’s O!o Botanico, founded in1789, acts as an inspiration of thetwel"th edition of Manifesta, the

European nomadic biennial that openedits doors on Saturday the 16th of June atthe Sicilian capital. Titled The Planeta#y

Garden: Cultivating Coexistence, itpresents fi"ty a!ist and thi!y new

commissioned a!works until the 4th ofNovember at five main locations, ten

venues with solo a!ist shows throughoutthe historic city, and five sites on the

periphe#y.

For those not familiar with it,Manifesta is an interdisciplinaryexhibition that features talks,

P A L E R M O

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concerts, performances, films, andworkshops where visitors faceuncomfortable topics such asglobal war and surveillance,climate change, toxicity, andmigration. This year’s edition, theBiennale is signed by four culturalmediators: Spanish architectAndrés Jaque, journalist andfilmmaker Bregtje van der Haak,Sicilian-born architect and OMApartner Ippolito PestelliniLaparelli, and curator MirjamVaradinis.

Even though it has its headquartersin the Teatro Comunale Garibaldi,located in the historic PiazzaMagione, the city itself is the mainstage of the biennial: decayingpalaces, oratories, enchanted ruins,spectacular churches, extravagantcourtyards, and rarely accessibleplaces of wonder lend a superbatmospheric backdrop to the

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festival. The show shapes up threemain sections: Garden of Flows, atOrto Botanico and palazzo Butera;City on Stage, atPalazzo Constantino, TeatroGaribaldi, Instituto Padre Messinaand the suburban sites Costa Sud,Pizzo Sella, and ghetto area ZonaEspansione Nord (ZEN); and Out ofControl Room, at PalazziAjutamcristo, Forcella de Seta,Trinacria, and Casa del Mutilato.Also, Manifesta 12 will be furtherexpanded by more than seventycollateral events.

Garden of FlowsGarden of Flows

The marvellous Orto Botanico isone of the most important sites ofthe event. Within the building,Palermo Herbal, by Malin Franzén,juxtaposes the Sicilian botanistmethod of nature prints with

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contemporary scientificvisualisation techniques torepresent plants that coexist withtoxicity. Toyin Ojih Odutola’scollection of drawings, namedScenes of Exchange, is a series ofcharcoal and pastel drawingsdepicting the presence of WestAfrica within Italy throughquotidian episodes.

Inside the majestic garden, LeoneContini has located his pieceForeign Farmers, an experimentalgarden where migrating varietiescohabit; the Sicilian cucuzza growsalongside its Bengali, Sri Lankan,Philippine, Turkish, and Chinesecounterparts. Michael Wang’s worksare embedded in the environment;The Drowned World is focused onthe role of plants in theAnthropocene. It includes afountain colonized by green-blueliving cyanobacteria, a forest

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composed of plants similar to theexisting in the CarboniferousPeriod, and a gallery of close-updetailed images of coal.Pteridophilia, by Zheng Bo, is avideo piece installed on a flatscreen in the middle of the gardenthat explores the eco-queerpotential. In it, seven young menwalk into a forest in Taiwan andengage in intimate contact withplants.

At Palazzo Butera, the Los Angelescollective Fallen Fruit has printeddazzling wallpaper patterned withthe public fruiting trees of the city.Renato Leotta’s minimalist and oneof the most poetic installations ofthe show, Notte di San Lorenzo, isa floor made of terracotta tiles withthe marks of the falling lemonsthat cover the entire main roomfloor of the palazzo. Uriel Orlow’svideo installation Wishing

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Trees brings together three Siciliantrees that hold memories ofsignificant events and people,connecting human histories andnature. The installation connectsthe lives of veteran anti-mafiaactivist Simona Mafai and Africanmigrant cooks in Palermo to thehopes and desires the trees stillstand for. Next video installation isMelanie Bonajo’s Night Soil Trilogy.The artist explores the alienatedurbanites who try to reconnectthrough nature-derived practicesand belief systems: ayahuasca trips,sexual therapy, and back-to-the-land food cultures as a form ofsocial healing.

Spread around the city gardens andthe open-air Chiesa Santa Mariadello Spasimo, the duo CookingSessions built simple structuresaround different trees to study howto grow plants without water, and

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what would it mean to waterwithout water.

Toyin Ojih Odutola

Leone ContiniManifesta 12 - Cultivating coexistence in

Palermo | Words by María MuñozShare ! [1]

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$

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Renato Leotta

Uriel Orlow

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Cooking Sections

City on StageCity on Stage

In this section, there are artworksabout Palermo as well asperformances about the city (andtaking place in it). The processionof Santa Rosalia inspired threeartists. Jelili Atiku’s Festino dellaTerra is a processional performancethat talks about festival walkingrituals through the ancient story ofGreen Man – from the Yoruba andWest African traditional stories –,myths, beliefs about the Earth,

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trees, and the divine Orisha ofplants.

Marinella Senatore’s PalermoProcession involves all Palermitancommunities. The processionreflects Palermo, a dancing city, incontinuous movement, while anexhibition at the Chiesa SS. Euno eGiuliano describes the preparatoryprocess to participate in it. Tutto,by Matilde Cassani, draws onSicilian baroque traditions up-to-date. At Quattro Canti, anexplosion of colourful pieces ofpaper with messages and imageswere shot into the air to slowlydescend, dropping on the heads ofthe spectators.

There is the film New PalermoFelicissima, a video installation byCatalan artist Jordi Colomer,located at the Instituto PadreMessina. Colomer features a small

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group of people moving by boatalong the seaside Costa Sud while ayoung guide gives informationabout the city: a jovial piece aboutfiction, oral history, andcommunities.

One of the preview visitors’favourites is theinstallation Protocol no. 90/6, byItalian duo Masbedo, at the StateArchive. The piece combines thevideo of a puppet shown on a giantLED screen surrounded by massesof stacked old documentarymaterial. Masbedo also showsVideomobile at PalazzoConstatino, an old van turned intoa ‘video-cart’, which presents thelocations of film-sets in Palermoon its screens.

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Jelili Atiku

Marinella Senatore

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Matilde Cassani

Jordi Colomer

Out of Control RoomOut of Control Room

This section tries to materialize theinvisible networks in the system of

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digital flows with particularreference to the evolution ofadministration of power. In Casadel Mutilato, Christina Lucas’sfantastic videoinstallation Unending Lightningdocuments the history of aerialbombardments over civiliantargets, from the first one in 1911to the present day. Over the lastfive years, a number of researchgroups have created a databasewith information on the dynamicsof such civilian massacres, whichhas been the main reference for theSpanish artist’s installation. Also,on the facade of the building,hangs a piece of cloth with the liftformula with which the old dreamof flying became a reality.

At Palazzo Ajutamicristo, superyoung Algerian-born LydiaOurahmane presents The ThirdChoir, a sound installation

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composed of twenty oil barrels,each holding a cell phone withfragments of sound pieces recordedin Algeria, evoking the transfer ofgoods and people. Across theBorder, by Filippo Minelli, is aseries of flags made by performersfrom all the geographical areaswith which Palermo is connecteddue to migration or the exchangeof communications throughInternet infrastructures.

Tania Bruguera’s installation Article11 documents the Sicilian politicalmovements that confronted andopposed the new United StatesNavy communication satellitesystem located on the island. TheCuban artist worked with localprotest groups and has covered onewall with a mural portraying theforce of local opposition to thesatellite. Connected by Air, byRichard Vijgen, is a piece about

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data visualization that proposes animage of Palermo’s sky seenthrough a window that contains apanoramic view of all the data andobjects crossing it, includingwireless signals, satellites,airplanes, and ACs. Inspired bytechniques of the Renaissanceperspective, the artist has created avisualization of data in a sotto insu’ projection of the Palermo sky.

At Palazzo Forcella de Seta, there isa clear supremacy of video versusother mediums. One of the fewnon-video works is The Soul ofSalt, by PatriciaKaersenhout, literally a mountainof blessed salt framed by thepalace’s marvellous Arab-Normaninspired mosaics. The Caribbeanenslaved people dreamed of flyingback to Africa, and a legend saidthat the consumption of salt wouldweigh them down.

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Works on video are ForensicOceanography’s Liquid Violence, anexamination of Italy and theEuropean Union’s decision to cutback on search and rescueoperations at sea. It alsoinvestigates how theMediterranean’s increasingmilitarization impacts the risingnumbers of deaths amongmigrants. Laura Poitras work – asTania Bruguera’s – relates to theUnited States military presence inSicily, which connects via satelliteto drone controllers in theAmerican country. In an outerroom, a small monitor screenshows a huge military dronepreparing for deployment andPoitras’s own drone-shot video isprojected in a dark chamber.

John Gerrard’s works aresimulations and virtual worlds

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looking like real film or video.Untitled (near Parndorf ) Austria2018 is a video installation thatcreates a detailed virtual portrait ofthe highway scene exactly asexperienced by the Irish artist onSaturday, August 29 of 2015, a fewdays after the human tragedy thathappened in that place. Berlin-based Peng! Collective’sFluchthelfer.in. Become an EscapeAgent is a video piece that providesinformation on how to participatein helping refugees to cross theinterior borders of the EuropeanUnion while minimizing the risk ofcriminal consequences. They alsobegan a crowdfunding campaign tohelp thecontemporary Fluchthelfer sustainthe legal costs resulting from theiracts of civil disobedience.

It is clear that Palermo is reflectingback the driving forces behind big

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international events: economicstimulus, urban regeneration, civicengagement, new spaces on thecity, and certainly a position in theart world map. Manifesta 12 usesperfectly the garden as a metaphorof diversity that embodies the city,at the intersection of Western,Islamic and Byzantine cultures anda crossroad between Africa andEurope.

Christina Lucas

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Lydia Ourahmane

Tania Bruguera

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R E L A T E D C O N T E N T S

Manifesta 12 will take place untilNovember 4 in different venues andlocations of Palermo (Italy).

WordsMaría Muñoz

PhotosCou!esy Of Manifesta Palermo © Wolfgang Traeger

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