In addition to OMA, 12th Manifesta appoints team of 4 creative mediators for its in 2018 in Palermo

The selection of OMA as the Manifesta 12 team for urban studies in Palermo, Sicily, has been followed up by the appointment of an international, interdisciplinary team of four creative mediators.

Italian architect Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, who is a partner at OMA, working on preservation, scenography, and curation, and also leading OMA Urban Studies.

Italian architect Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, partner at OMA working on preservation, scenography and curation, is both leading OMA Urban Studies, as well as the team of creative mediators, which includes the Swiss contemporary art curator Mirjam Varadinis, who works in Kunsthaus Zurich and was co-curator of TRACK, a largescale city-wide international exhibition in the tradition of Chambres d’amis in Ghent, Belgium; Spanish architect, artist and scholar based in New York and Madrid, Andrés Jaque, the founder of the Office of Political Innovation, working on the intersection of research, politics and design; and Dutch filmmaker and journalist Bregtje van der Haak, who has been directing international documentaries and transmedia projects on long-term social change with a special focus on urbanisation and technological culture.

In conjunction with the outcome of the urban studies conducted by OMA, these four creative mediators will collaborate collectively on the conceptualisation of the Manifesta 12 biennial programme. 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.

“The need for in-depth research strategies to ‘unlock’ the host cities of Manifesta, and understanding more precisely the social, cultural and geographical textures of a city has been an urge felt for a long time”, says Hedwig Fijen, director of Manifesta and leading the new strategy. “Our nomadic nature, moving from one city to another, requires a far more specific strategy to unlock cities as a way of preparing the canvas on which a painter can later start working”.

This need to decode has been translated by working on two levels: urban and curatorial, each partially influencing each other. The aim of this synthesis is to provide all the people from Palermo the tools to claim back their city and to use Palermo as a kind of blueprint for reflecting, from a southern perspective, on migration, climate change, heritage and the condition of Europe.

For Manifesta 12, the city is considered as a form of engaged political governance and a complex physical body. It is here that contemporary art and other cultural practices can address the collective imagination of all of Palermo’s residents, a diverse mixture of identities existing side by side in a syncretism rooted in the city. In this way, the larger European and Mediterranean condition resonates, fostering a new sense of belonging between citizens and the temporal and spatial textures of their city.

The first part of the urban research of OMA will create a social, cultural and geographical framework of topics, recommendations and insights through which the creative mediators can start research on the biennial program, which is meant to interact with local communities, international visitors and art professionals.

The OMA urban studies for Palermo will be presented in the spring of 2017 and the curators, called creative mediators, who are developing artistic content based on a deep knowledge of the site, will present their plans for Manifesta 12 in mid-summer 2017.

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Bregtje van der Haak, a Dutch filmmaker and journalist, who has been directing international documentaries and transmedia projects on long-term social change with a special focus on urbanisation and technological culture.

Spanish architect, artist and scholar, Andrés Jaque, the founder of the Office for Political Innovation, an international practice that works in the intersection of research, politics and design.

Mirjam Varadinis, a Swiss contemporary art curator, who works in Kunsthaus Zürich and was co-curator of TRACK, a largescale city-wide international exhibition in Ghent, Belgium.

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Bregtje van der Haak

Bregtje van der Haak is a documentary filmmaker and journalist. Since 1997, she has been directing international documentaries and transmedia projects on long-term social change with a special focus on urbanization and technological culture. Her documentaries include Saudi Solutions, DNA Dreams, Satellite Queens, Lagos Wide & Close and Atlas of Pentecostalism, and have been shown on television, in film festivals and in art exhibitions around the world. Van der Haak was the first woman filmmaker to film the lives of working women in Saudi Arabia in 2006 and was honoured with the Media Woman of the Year award. Van der Haak regularly directs episodes of the VPRO Backlight Series on Future Affairs and is a board member of the Prince Claus Fund and the Erasmus Prize. She studied dance in Paris, political science and law at the University of Amsterdam and the New School for Social Research in New York, and journalism at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University in New York. She has been a Visiting Professor at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the School of Creative Media at the City University of Hong Kong

Mirjam Varadinis

Mirjam Varadinis has been curator and art historian at Kunsthaus Zürich since September 2002. She is in charge of contemporary art and has organized various exhibitions, including among others, the group shows “Action!” (2017) and “Shifting Identities” (2008), as well as solo exhibitions with Akram Zaatari, Javier Téllez, Haris Epaminonda, Rosa Barba, Roman Ondák, Adrian Paci, Mircea Cantor, Tino Sehgal, Erik van Lieshout, Nedko Solakov, Urs Fischer and David Shrigley a.o. She has published numerous catalogues and artist books and contributes to international art magazines. In 2013, Mirjam Varadinis curated “0 Performance – The Fragile Beauty of Crisis”, a special project for the 5th Moscow Biennial of Contemporary Art. In 2012, she co-curated “TRACK” (together with Philippe Van Cauteren), a large-scale, city-wide international group exhibition in the tradition of “Chambres d’amis” in Ghent, Belgium. In 2006, Varadinis was also a curator of “Printemps de Septembre”, an annual festival of contemporary art in Toulouse, France.

OMA. Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is an international practice operating within the traditional boundaries of architecture and urbanism. AMO, a research and design studio, applies architectural thinking to domains beyond. OMA is led by eight partners – Rem Koolhaas, Reinier de Graaf, Ellen van Loon, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, Chris van Duijn, Jason Long, and Managing Partner-Architect David Gianotten – and maintains offices in Rotterdam, New York, Hong Kong, Doha, and Australia. OMA-designed buildings currently under construction are the renovation of Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) in Berlin, The Factory in Manchester, Hangzhou Prism, the CMG Times Center in Shenzhen and the Simone Veil Bridge in Bordeaux.

OMA’s completed projects include Taipei Performing Arts Centre (2022), Audrey Irmas Pavilion in Los Angeles (2020), Norra Tornen in Stockholm (2020), Axel Springer Campus in Berlin (2020), MEETT Toulouse Exhibition and Convention Centre (2020), Galleria in Gwanggyo (2020), WA Museum Boola Bardip (2020), nhow RAI Hotel in Amsterdam (2020), a new building for Brighton College (2020), and Potato Head Studios in Bali (2020). Earlier buildings include Fondazione Prada in Milan (2018), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow (2015), De Rotterdam (2013), CCTV Headquarters in Beijing (2012), Casa da Música in Porto (2005), and the Seattle Central Library (2004).

AMO often works in parallel with OMA's clients to fertilize architecture with intelligence from this array of disciplines. This is the case with Prada: AMO's research into identity, in-store technology, and new possibilities of content-production in fashion helped generate OMA's architectural designs for new Prada epicenter stores in New York and Los Angeles. In 2004, AMO was commissioned by the European Union to study its visual communication, and designed a colored "barcode" flag, combining the flags of all member states, which was used during the Austrian presidency of the EU. AMO has worked with Universal Studios, Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, Heineken, Ikea, Condé Nast, Harvard University and the Hermitage. It has produced Countryside: The Future, a research exhibited at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York; exhibitions at the Venice Architecture Biennale, including Public Works (2012), Cronocaos (2010), and The Gulf (2006); and for Fondazione Prada, including When Attitudes Become Form (2012) and Serial and Portable Classics (2015). AMO, with Harvard University, was responsible for the research and curation of the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale and its publication Elements. Other notable projects are Roadmap 2050, a plan for a Europe-wide renewable energy grid; Project Japan, a 720-page book on the Metabolism architecture movement (Taschen, 2010); and the educational program of Strelka Institute in Moscow.

Ippolito Pestellini LAPARELLI

Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli joined OMA in 2007 and is based in Rotterdam. A partner since 2014, Ippolito’s work at OMA/AMO has a focus on preservation, scenography, and curation. Currently Ippolito is leading the transformation design of the 16th century Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice, the renovation of Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) in Berlin and the design of Repossi’s flagship store on Place Vendôme in Paris. Recent work includes Monditalia, a multi-disciplinary exhibition focused on Italy, at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale; scenography for the Greek theater of Syracuse in Sicily (2012); and the co-curation of Cronocaos, OMA’s exhibition on preservation at the 2010 Venice Architectural Biennale. Through collaborations with different brands including Repossi, Galleries Lafayette, Knoll, and Prada his activity extends to research, product design, temporary installations, and publications. Since 2010, Ippolito is responsible for a range of AMO projects with Prada, including the stage design for the brand’s fashion shows and special events, and the art direction of videos. He contributes to exhibition design for Fondazione Prada, with projects such as When Attitudes Become Form: 1969/2013 and Serial Classics (2015). Ippolito holds a Master of Architecture from the Politecnico di Milano.

ANDRÉS JAQUE

Andrés Jaque, holds a Ph.D. in architecture. He is the founder of the Office for Political Innovation and the Dean of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, New York.

In 2014 he received the Silver Lion at the 14th Mostra Internazionale di Architettura, Biennale di Venezia.

He is the author of award-winning projects such as Plasencia Clergy House (Dionisio Hernández Gil Prize), House in Never Never Land (Mies Van der Rohe European Union Award's finalist), TUPPER HOME (X Bienal Española de Arquitectura y Urbanismo), or ESCARAVOX (COAM Award 2013). He has also developed architectural performances as well as installations that question political frameworks through architectural practice; including IKEA Disobedients (MoMA Collection, 2011); PHANTOM. Mies as Rendered Society (Mies Barcelona Pavilion, 2012) or Superpowers of Ten (Lisbon Triennale, 2014).

Andrés Jaque is a Professor of Advanced Design at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) and Visiting Professor at Princeton University's School of Architecture.