The Manifesta Coffee Break is an informal public brainstorming session, leading up to Manifesta 6, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art. Focusing on art education, the Coffee Break, part of an ongoing series initiated by the International Foundation Manifesta, will help prepare the way for the Biennial itself, which will take place in Nicosia, Cyprus from September 23rd to December 17th, 2006 and for which the curators - Mai Abu ElDahab, Anton Vidokle and Florian Waldvogel - propose to challenge the conventional large-scale exhibition format and alternatively establish an art school.
The Manifesta Coffee Break will attempt to consider the possibilities and problems of art education, engaging participants and audiences with the issues at hand: goals and structure of a school, its ideological contexts, its possibilities for relevant cultural production, its relationship to social, political and geographical conditions, and the level of its discursive involvement.
Participants include Babak Afrassiabi, Martin Beck, Daniel Birnbaum, Jürgen Bock, Adrienne Goehler, Vasif Kortun, Raimundas Malasauskas, Francesco Manacorda, Monica Narula, Anber Onar, John Palmesino, Yiannis Papadakis, Irit Rogoff, Martha Rosler, Walid Sadek, Nasrin Tabatabai, Jalal Toufic, Jan Verwoert, Florian Waldvogel and Elin Wikström.

At its beginning Manifesta was not intended strictly as a biennale exhibition - rather it was conceptualized as a fairly open structure with a goal to create a meaningful, long term cultural dialogue and to build stronger links between east and west Europe's artists and art audiences. These aims emphasized a more significant type of participation of Eastern European artists in the European art scene - beyond a shallow multicultural approach common at that time. The complexity of Cyprus and Nicosia - a culturally and politically divided site, geographically isolated and located closer to the Middle East than to Europe - creates a unique opportunity to revisit the original mandate of Manifesta and to re-think its form and functions. In so doing, activating Manifesta's capacity to be a catalyst for energizing cultural production, institutions and discourse in the region.

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For more information contact:
Mahita El Bacha Urieta
Manifesta 6
Corner of Pentadaktilou and Tempon Streets
P.O. Box 21015, Nicosia 1500, Cyprus
Tel +357 22 797400 / Fax +357 22 432531
www.manifesta6.org.cy
mahita@manifesta6.org.cy