Manifesta Journal #18

This Situation Never Leaves our Waking Thoughts for Long

Manifesta 10 took place in the tumultuous political and social environment of St. Petersburg, Russia between 28 June and 31 October 2014. In light of this experience, Manifesta Foundation commissioned the MJ editorial team to explore the issues of censorship and self-censorship in a global context. Manifesta Journal #18 is the last issue of the six-journal series under the direction of Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez.

Parallel to the fateful “Russian Spring” and the continuing tragedies in Palestine, Syria and Iraq among others, editorial work on this issue focused on a central, recurring question: how can we continue to work under current conditions? A massive global shift is underway in the order—or shall we rather say, disorder—of things. Notions of hybridity and unevenness have been gobbled up by notions of hybrid war, with its ghost armies and its highly addictive image productions. All the old foes of censorship, criminal persecution, and instrumentalization are back with a vengeance, but there is nothing old about the choices they prompt. In the age of hybrid war and velvet revolutions, things are much more complex. Caught up in the confused dynamics of political turmoil, the conditions hold us hostage unless we can somehow manage to change them. If we accept and internalize the imperatives of power not to address “complicated issues,” however, we will most likely ignore these “elephants in the room.” How can we describe the difference between our various complications, and do they really add up to something like a global turn? Furthermore, how can we continue our various engagements, despite the overwhelming pressure to boycott, withdraw, and resign?

Edited in collaboration with Lisa Mazza as associate editor and David Riff as guest editor, such a collective endeavor is a continuation of the approach to the issues from MJ #13 to MJ #17 whose previous guest editors were Cuauhtémoc Medina, Rasha Salti and Bisi Silva, and associate editor Virginie Bobin. MJ#18 includes contributions by Nancy Adajania, Mohammad al-Attar, Burak Arikan, Boris Buden, Ilya Budraitskis, Keti Chukhrov, Julia Rometti and Victor Costales, David Riff, Ntone Edjabe, Bassam El Baroni, Hu Fang, Mariam Ghani, Sarah Joseph, Hassan Khan, Nikita Kadan, Erden Kosova, Koyo Kouoh, Amanda Lee Koe, Donna Kukama, Matteo Lucchetti Viktor Misiano, Gleb Naprenko, Veronica Noseda, Alexandra Novozhenova, Andrei Parshikov, Tan Pin Pin, David Riff, Alfian Sa’at, Rasha Salti, Moses Serubiri, Ana Teixeira Pinto, Joanna Warsza and Veronica Wiman.

Read Manifesta Journal #18 online here.

Manifesta Journal is an initiative of the Manifesta Foundation, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.