Manifesta 16 moves into twelve emptied churches

The sixteenth edition of Manifesta, titled This is not a church, runs until 4 October 2026 across Bochum, Duisburg, Essen and Gelsenkirchen, occupying twelve deconsecrated or underused church buildings with 106 participants. Instead of curators the biennial works through so-called creative mediators, a structure meant to build relationships at neighbourhood level.

Works engage the buildings directly: Luc Tuymans's KINO at Christ-König church, Elizabeth Price's WHERE ARE YOU WHERE ARE YOU and Abbas Zahedi's Ouranophobia 47051 at Kulturkirche Liebfrauen in Duisburg, Marina Naprushkina's Kein Geläut at Gethsemane church. Pınar Öğrenci and Małgorzata Mirga-Tas are among the participants. Reviewing the biennial for ArtReview on 3 July 2026, Phoebe Blatton argued that much of the art illustrates the situation while the lasting effect may come from community interventions such as a basketball court. An exhibition in an emptied church explains the emptying well; reoccupation is the harder test.