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

Yassine Balbzioui, FR/MA

The work Embouteillages is a series of paintings on both sides of the Metro Station Noailles, unfolding an archive of images collected onsite, processed through the artist’s imagination. During his artistic residency, Yassine Balbzioui set up a workshop in the market of Place des Capucins: a crossroad of stories, encounters and tensions. The artist opened himself up to interactions and confrontations in order to construct narratives based on a combination of people’s stories and his own imagery. The characters and situations in his work are staged between fiction, absurd and unusual. They combine hybrid, unconventional, heterogeneous and ordinary aspects, all strongly anchored in the present. By forging links between visible and the invisible, Balbzioui’s works create spaces where anything is possible, relating new perspectives and possible universes that are subject to all interpretations.