Manifesta 8 – Region of Murcia, Spain
1st General Group Working Methodology Statement
October 2009
Manifesta 8 taking place in the Spanish cities of Murcia and Cartagena in 2010 is currently being curated by Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum, Chamber of Public Secrets and Tranzit.org as the three collectives, who together form the curatorial team of this edition of Manifesta.
Geographical, historical, ideological, philosophical, political, economical, and cultural factors are major constituents in any dialogue. A closer inspection of each of these constituents as animators and vocabularies is needed to analyze, critique, and perform the dialogical task. This process and its aesthetical manifestations will become the main conceptual ground on which the M8 curatorial team will build its general approach.
The dialogue with Northern Africa as predelineated by the Region of Murcia and Manifesta, or less constrictively the "idea" of a dialogue between Spain and the EU's neighbors to the south and beyond, will be the main trajectory that Manifesta 8's curatorial team intersects at. Three distinct curatorial units with three strongly identifiable and different curatorial, theoretical, and practical approaches will be clearly distinguishable; however the three units will share this trajectory that will play the role of the common denominator between them.
Manifesta 8 – Region of Murcia, Spain
1st General Group Working Methodology Statement
October 2009
Manifesta 8 taking place in the Spanish cities of Murcia and Cartagena in 2010 is currently being curated by Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum, Chamber of Public Secrets and Tranzit.org as the three collectives, who together form the curatorial team of this edition of Manifesta.
Geographical, historical, ideological, philosophical, political, economical, and cultural factors are major constituents in any dialogue. A closer inspection of each of these constituents as animators and vocabularies is needed to analyze, critique, and perform the dialogical task. This process and its aesthetical manifestations will become the main conceptual ground on which the M8 curatorial team will build its general approach.
The dialogue with Northern Africa as predelineated by the Region of Murcia and Manifesta, or less constrictively the "idea" of a dialogue between Spain and the EU's neighbors to the south and beyond, will be the main trajectory that Manifesta 8's curatorial team intersects at. Three distinct curatorial units with three strongly identifiable and different curatorial, theoretical, and practical approaches will be clearly distinguishable; however the three units will share this trajectory that will play the role of the common denominator between them.
In the following months the three collectives will work both separately and collectively to develop the Manifesta 8 program. Rather than attempting to formulate a unified front in order to produce one grand scale project that would attempt to present a unilateral view on sensitive and endlessly contested issues, the three collectives have opted to understand and determine their collaboration on the basis of a pluralist view of the socio-political and artistic spheres. Thus it is the aim of the M8 curatorial team to develop a biennale that: diversifies opinions, destabilizes ideas as they are being produced, and that cannot be boiled down to a series of statements, because the factors at stake in issuing such a dialogue are almost infinite and prismatic in nature.
Regards,
ACAF, CPS, transit.org
