Manifesta purposely strives to keep its distance from what are often seen as the dominant centres of artistic production, instead seeking fresh and fertile terrain for the mapping of a new cultural topography.
Mabe Bethônico, BR/CH
Walking the Dust, 2026. Mixed media.
Mabe Bethônico’s work is structured around two main axes: archivism and extractivism. Using archival materials and her own constructions, she examines how knowledge is structured, preserved and narrated. Her work includes installations, publications and lectures, reactivating overlooked stories while reimagining institutional spaces. Through fiction and placing things in a new context or situation, she reveals how institutions shape memory and produce meaning. Combining historical inquiry with artistic intervention, she creates spaces where documents and narratives can be seen in a different light. Often working together with others, across disciplines and geographies, she approaches our soil as a dynamic living system, continuously damaged by mining.