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.
Cassidy Toner, US
What Do You Get?, 2026 © Cassidy Toner. Photo © Manifesta 16 Ruhr / Ivan Erofeev.
In Jan Verwoert's essay, Exhaustion and Exuberance, he reframes the "reluctant worker" a form of art. In a society of over production and quickly approaching deadlines, Cassidy Toner sees herself as a trickster participating in this paradox. She is trying to speed up production and at the same time find enjoyement in causing the printer to jam. With this in mind, she considers there to be endless ways to interact with art. When she was 16, she went to the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. on a school trip. She saw a woman stumble over Mona Hatoum's sculpture - ENTRAILS CARPET (1995). The room went silent, the woman was mortified, the guard stood there with his jaw dropped, and she knew she wanted to be an artist.