Creative Mediators

Leoluca Orlando, Mayor of the City of Palermo, Hedwig Fijen, Director of Manifesta, and Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, partner at OMA, are delighted to announce the Creative Mediator team for the 12th edition of Manifesta, held in Palermo, Italy, 2018.

The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) has been invited by the Director of Manifesta, Hedwig Fijen, to mediate the complex architectural and urban structure of the city of Palermo, and investigate the role of city governance and address how contemporary cities are affected by tourism, gentrification, migration and climate change. The result of this investigation is a Palermo Atlas by OMA for Manifesta 12, an interdisciplinary urban study of the city completed by the architecture office in July 2017 and presented in the newly re-opened Teatro Garibaldi by the Mayor of Palermo Leoluca Orlando, Director of Manifesta Hedwig Fijen and Manifesta 12 Creative Mediator and OMA architect, Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli.

The outcomes of the Palermo Atlas will be translated into an accessible biennial program by four Creative Mediators, Italian architect and partner at OMA, Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli; Dutch filmmaker and journalist, Bregtje van der Haak; Spanish architect and scholar based in New York, Andrés Jaque; and Swiss contemporary art curator, Mirjam Varadinis. This newly invented biennial model of collaborative research, made by an urban office working together with a team of interdisciplinary mediators, is functioning as a curatorial intervention in the city of Palermo. This format corresponds perfectly with how a nomadic event like Manifesta can create a solid legacy in the host city.

By fusing different disciplines and rooting itself in a holistic urban research, Manifesta 12 hopes to extend its impact beyond just engaging audiences with contemporary art, but towards providing Palermo citizens with tools to imagine the future of their city.