Manifesta 16 Ruhr has come to a close!

After 15 weeks of transforming churches across the Ruhr Area into spaces for community engagement, Manifesta 16 Ruhr has officially come to a close.

With nearly 200,000 attendances across Manifesta 16 Ruhr’s exhibition visits, pre-biennial activities and the Manifesta 16+ programme, this edition has put the future of vacant and deconsecrated churches firmly on the cultural and political agenda.

Rather than treating church closures simply as a story of loss, the 16th edition of the European Nomadic Biennial has demonstrated how these buildings can become a new form of civic infrastructure for their neighbourhoods.

Over almost six years, Manifesta researched around 200 churches across the Ruhr Area. During the biennial, 12 churches across Duisburg, Essen, Gelsenkirchen and Bochum became testing grounds for new uses. 107 participants from 30 countries (half of them based in Germany) and local communities transformed them into spaces for gathering, culture and participation: from a tea garden and weaving workshop to a music hall and a basketball court. Our free public events attracted over 9,400 attendees.

With more than 700 published articles covering Manifesta 16, the biennial has changed public conversation. The question is no longer only how to preserve a church, but how existing architecture can serve a changing society and how buildings can be repurposed by and for their local community.

If you missed the opportunity to experience Manifesta 16 in person or would like to explore the biennial further, the official catalogue (in both English and German) is still available to order through our publisher, Kettler Verlag. The publication offers an in-depth exploration of the edition’s urban and artistic concept, alongside texts on all participants and their installations.