In Prishtina, nomadic biennial Manifesta 14 draws on the past and future of Kosovo through ambitious art and staggering architecture© Flaka Haliti. Photo © Manifesta 14 Prishtina, Ivan Erofeev
It can feel unnerving when European art biennials and cultural visions wade in such explicit terms into highly contentious political territory; these events often barely camouflage their implicit purpose of being tools of soft power for Western political interests. Yet in this particular context, the cards are on the table—and Kosovars aren’t being shy about using Manifesta 14 to platform their issues, too.
Manifesta enlisted Turin-based office Carlo Ratti Associati as ‘architectural mediator’ to conduct an urban study . One of Ratti’s interventions to transform Prishtina beyond the biennial’s 100-day run is the Green Corridor, a pedestrian park dotted with benches and newly planted trees along disused railway tracks. Indeed, walking through the city in the midst of a heatwave, the need for shaded, car-free zones became abundantly clear.
’s fables, in which robotic animals explore Brutalist utopian architecture in the region, including Prishtina’s National Library of Kosovo in a work titled. Amsterdam-based Bosnian artist and activist Selma Selman uses poetic humour to address the oppression of Roma people in the work. There, the artist is seen joined by her family, who collect and sell scrap metal for a living, in dismantling a Mercedes Benz, one of the most recognised status symbols across the Balkans and beyond.
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Source: TheEconomist - 🏆 6. / 92 Read more »