Did the three people in charge of organizing Manifesta 6 really know what they were getting into? What went wrong between Manifesta 6 and the city of Nicosia? Curators Anton Vidokle, Florian Waldvogel, and Mai Abu ElDahab hoped to open an art school in the tradition of Black Mountain College or Bauhaus for one-hundred days in the Cyprus capital this fall.
But plans to locate part of the school beyond the Green Line—in the contested zone that Turkish troops have occupied since 1974—prompted city officials in Nicosia to terminate the curators' contract, effectively canceling an event that could have stimulated relations between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities. Artforum | Artnet | Nicosia Municipality Responded | Cyprus Mail editorial
For Immediate Release
June 6, 2006
A letter from Mai Abu ElDahab, Anton Vidokle and Florian Waldvogel, former curators of Manifesta 6
Dear Colleagues, Dear Friends,
Manifesta 6 was planned to take the form of a temporary art school, the Manifesta 6 School, comprised of three departments revolving around diverse cultural issues and debates, and each proposing a different structural model for art education. The proposed Manifesta 6 School is a postgraduate, trans-disciplinary program for approximately 90 participants from many parts of the world lasting about 12-weeks: (see full list of Manifesta 6 participants below). Inspired by such historical examples as Black Mountain College and the Bauhaus, the School would be a meeting ground for cultural producers in the region and beyond, and a platform for discussion and production.
In keeping with the past goals of Manifesta to open dialogue between West Europe’s artists and audiences and their Eastern European peers, Manifesta 6 intended to “play a modest role in developing new forms of cultural partnerships, not only within the new Europe, but particularly between Europe and its immediate neighbouring regions.†Such cultural partnerships in the context of Nicosia, a city located on the furthermost edge of European Community and divided into Greek and Turkish Cypriot sectors, specifically implies engagement and presence in both communities inhabiting this city.
Unfortunately, on June 1st, we received a letter from the Mayor of Nicosia, Cyprus, effectively terminating our contracts to organize Manifesta 6, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art in Nicosia. On June 2nd, Nicosia for Art Ltd. (the non-profit organization set up and owned by the Municipality of Nicosia to run the project) made a public announcement and circulated it internationally defining a variety of alleged breaches of contract by the curators, which led the city to cancel the project.
The alleged breaches of contract being referred to relate in large part to what Nicosia for Art Ltd. states as “Recently and contrary to the original concept of the Manifesta 6 program the curatorial team insisted on the establishment and operation of an essential part of the Manifesta 6 School in the occupied part of Nicosiaâ€, a break of confidentiality and an unwillingness on the part of the curators to mediate the situation to reach an amicable compromise to allow for the project to be realized.
With regards to the primary issue around the location of a part of the school in the north, the contractual agreement made with the local authorities clearly defined Manifesta 6 as a bi-communal project, therefore, we believed ourselves to be working within the parameters outlined and agreed upon at the outset of the project. Accordingly, we developed the project in the spirit of this bi-communality, and throughout the process, the Greek Cypriot authorities not only agreed, but also encouraged this approach to working in both areas of the city and made numerous official public statements confirming their support.
The Manifesta 6 School was envisioned as an important cultural project to take place in a city whose political climate has been changing dramatically. Needless to say, we continued to work to safeguard this position while obviously making every effort to reach a compromise with Nicosia for Art Ltd. to ensure our concept is realized. Moreover, we continuously advocated for a transparency within the process to maintain responsible and accountable conditions for our collaborators and ourselves.
Unfortunately, throughout the course of the last six months, we were increasingly hindered by a lack of administrative support to realize the project, which simply climaxed with the termination of our contracts as the final gesture reflecting Nicosia for Art’s unwillingness to resolve any disagreements. Although we can conjecture and analyze the problematics of the situation, we feel that our foremost priority now is to attempt to find a way to ensure that the commitments and hard work of all of those involved whether administratively or from the artistic side is not lost, and is treated with the utmost respect and support.
This cancellation of the Manifesta 6 School does a great disservice to the cultural community of Cyprus. Numerous artists, writers and academics who live on both sides of the island have sent us letters of support, protesting arbitrary action by local authorities that deprives the cultural community of an invaluable opportunity to meet and engage with their peers from around the world, noting that “given the limited resources available at the local level, the mobilization of such interest and expertise for Nicosia is unprecedented and extremely special.â€
We are currently in the process of considering and planning how to proceed, while rejecting any form of censorship that obstructs the dissemination of ideas and impedes artistic production.
We very much appreciate the support we have been getting in the course of the past few days and very much hope we are able to turn these unfortunate events into a productive outcome. The International Foundation Manifesta will be sending out a press release shortly outlining the plans to come.
Thank you once again.
Sincerely,
Mai Abu ElDahab, Anton Vidokle, Florian Waldvogel
For further information, please write to International Foundation Manifesta at [email protected]
Invited participants of Manifesta 6 School
Department 1
Curator - Mai Abu ElDahab, Assistant Curator - Mohamed Yousri
Participants: Eyal Weizman, Variant Magazine, Francesco Bernardelli, Philip (a workshop by Heman Chong and Leif Magne Tangen), Pages Magazine, Jonas Ohlsson, Jan Verwoert, Yael Davids, Mark Aerial Waller, Brian Kuan Wood, Demetris Talliotis, Constantinos Talliotis, Christina Lambrou, Constance Gonoud, Sarah Oppenheimer, Andrew Peter Steen, Gidoen Boie, Motaz Atalla, Maha Maamoun, Dena Kasraian, Babak Rostamian, Andre Sousa, Gul Kozacioglu, Will Holder, Valentinas Klimasauskas, Ricardo Alzati, dotdotdot
Department 2
Curator - Anton Vidokle, Assistant Curator - Kaja Pawelek
Participants: Boris Groys, Martha Rosler, Walid Raad, Jalal Toufic, Tirdad Zolghadr, Liam Gillick, Anri Sala, Mete Hatay, Tobias Rehberger, Yiannis Papadakis, Christian Jankowski, Neurotransmitter, Pierre Huyghe, Akram Zaatari, Chrostodoulos Panayiotou, Ali Cherri, Alexandra Weirstall, Amber Onar, Antonios Bogadakis, Mike Bouchet, Carlos Motta, Carolina Caydeco, Driton Hajredini, Emily Mast & Carly Busta, Ethan Breckenridge, Fia Backstrom, Gabriel Lester, Haris Pellapaisiotis, Hila Peleg, Hubert Czerepok, Jakup Ferri, Jonah Freeman, Jose Leon Cerrilo, Julieta Aranda, Katina Saoulli, Katsura Kuniera, Koken Ergun, Liz Linden, Mandla Reuter, Munir Al Azawi, Pelin Uran, Polonca Lovsin, Regina Basha, Santiago Cucullu, Serap Kanay, Setareh Shahbazi, Shahab Fotouhi, Nico Dockx
Department 3
Curator - Florian Waldvogel, Assistant Curator - Benjamin Seibel
Participants: Julie Ault, Martin Beck, Silke Wagner, Japanther, Sebastian Lütgert, Thomas Edlinger, Sister Corita Kent, Fritz Ostermeyer, Dona Carmen, Jeronimo Voss, Gui Bonsiepe, Thomas Vizent, Nikolaus Hirsch, Moshe Zuckermann, Stefan Lehnert, Kisa, Alfred Schobert, Duncan McCowan, Katherine Hare, Melita Couta, Maria Efstathiou, Margarita Paraskevaidou, Anna Photiadou, Christopher Malapitan, Jens Strandberg, Bärbel Hartje, Gabriele Gaspari, Alexander Schikowski, Begum Erciyas, Can Sarvan Boranbay, Samuel Dowd, Andria Meletiou, Windianto Utomo, Claudia Di Lecce, Gaja Fugazza, Squid, Magnus Liistamo, Ralph Kistler, Robin Bhattachanya, Societe Realiste, Sussannah Mira, Craig Smith, Patrica Reed, Lasse Emlund Lorentzen, Lyn Lowenstein, Craig Leonard, Anthony Schrag, Inga Zimprich, Chicks on Speed, Petros Moris
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greek cypriots see their inclusion to european union is a free ticket to bring turkish cypriot community and to a greater extend the republic of turkey to its knees.
reasons of turkish army to be there in the first place is always overlooked by the world. and greek cypriots, acting greedy, rejected by referandum to unite the island a couple years ago. the same referandum was accepted by turkish cypriot community.
eu made a big mistake by granting a membership to a country which has an unresolved border situation and its 700,000 greek cypriots who are now holding 75 million turks hostage for european community negotiations by threatening to veto remaining 68 areas still need to be resolved.
they have just threatened to veto the first area of negotiotions a few weeks ago and turkey send a clear messege to europe that they are ready to say the hell with european union if they have to recognize greek cypriots as the only legitimate community on the island.
when greek cypriots rejected by referandum the united nations plan, which was spireheaded by kofi annan himself and javier salona, there were a lot of promises made to turkish community of the island by european community to lift the embargo on them. non of these promises were kept so far. and on the contrary , eu now wants turkey to officially recognize and open its sea and airports to greek cypriot trade as if they are the side who rejected the peace proposals, punishing the side who voted for unification and rewarding the side who rejected it.
since their inclusion to eu, greek cypriot side has been acting recklessly like spoiled brat and categorically rejecting any positive development towards peace under the pretense of occupied north which they wanted to include as a de facto greek property by a coup in 1974 and throw the turks out to the sea, which prompted turkish army to draw the green line to protect the turkish community of the island.
i am not surprised the miopic greek municipiality did another of their short sided acts and cancelled the said art event in favor of contuning the conflict which legitimizes their power.
it was too early in the morning to type a political post on a complex issue and i apologize for my spelling and grammer.
overall content stands unchanged.
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