Throughout its 25-year history, Manifesta has created extensive pre-biennial research into the fabric of the local Host Cities in order to create sustainable and relevant interdisciplinary projects. This multifaceted bottom-up investigation takes the form of an urban vision, citizen consultations, the mapping out of local communities as well as an array of expectation workshops with local opinion leaders in order to understand how the Host City might serve as a prototype for the world to come.

Manifesta 14’s objective is therefore to produce sustainable projects with a long-term legacy, co-created with the local infrastructure, as well as contemporary art interventions across the city of Prishtina.

Manifesta 14 Prishtina Western Balkans Project: Co-Producing Common Space and Shaping Formations of Solidarity in the Western Balkans and Beyond

Organised for the occasion of the biennial, Manifesta 14 has set up the Manifesta 14 Western Balkans project to enlarge the outreach and duration of the European nomadic biennial by developing a cross-regional collaboration platform including a vast array of cultural and civic activities across the region. An integral objective of the project is to open up the Western Balkans, creating a project that breaks the confines of isolated cultural infrastructures and networks.

Manifesta’s Expectation Workshops are a series of meetings with local stakeholders in the fields of culture, civil society, education, architecture, research and cultural politics in Prishtina. The general aim of these workshops is firstly, to introduce Manifesta to communities in Prishtina. Secondly, and most importantly, they are to identify the objectives, as well as the challenges, expectations and outcomes of Manifesta 14 in the City of Prishtina.

One of the key pillars of Manifesta, is its strong focus on urban development within its Host Cities. For each Manifesta edition, an in-depth urban research project is produced by a leading international architectural bureau. The Urban Vision functions as both pre-biennial research and a long-term plan to identify possible strategies, sites, communities and key topics for the city. The Urban Vision informs how Manifesta 14 will take shape within the local context, but most importantly it is commissioned to develop how the city of Prishtina could be transformed by reclaiming public space by its citizens.