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.

Manifesta 13 Marseille was one of the only international biennials to take place during the global pandemic COVID-19, the biennial ended earlier than planned due to the second national lockdown

Teresa Margolles, MX

Video installation at Hotel Rothaus

Mexican artist Teresa Margolles’s initial plan was to stage a poker game between Sonja Victoria Vera Bohórquez, a sex worker from Zurich, and transgender sex workers from Mexico. However, after one of her Mexican collaborators was murdered in December 2015 and another was imprisoned, Margolles filmed the poker game in Ciudad Juarez instead. The video was shown in the space in Zurich which remained empty in commemoration.