..20 | SATURDAY-SUNDAY, JUNE 30 - JULY 1, 2018 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION

weekend arts

Political art and world politics seldomdovetail in real time, but as the 12th edi-tion of the Manifesta contemporary artbiennial approached, its host city, Paler-mo, found itself walking its talk.

Titled “A Planetary Garden: Cultivat-ing Coexistence,” the exhibition, whichopened in mid-June, takes migration asone of its themes. And days before theinternational art crowd descended onPalermo, the Sicilian capital, Italy’s newinterior minister, Matteo Salvini, closedthe country’s ports to rescue boats — in-cluding the Aquarius, a ship looking to

dock in Italy with 629 migrants aboard.Resisting the national announce-

ment, Palermo’s mayor, Leoluca Orlan-do, offered to open the local port to thevessel, but the Italian Coast Guard de-clined to escort it in and the migrantswere rerouted to Spain. Mr. Orlando,who often personally greeted migrantswho arrived in Palermo’s harbor beforeMr. Salvini’s decision, is famous forfighting the Sicilian Mafia in multipleterms as mayor since the 1980s.

Another mission is to transform hishometown with culture: He bid success-fully for Palermo to be recognized as Ita-ly’s “Capital of Culture” this year, bring-ing extra government funding for cul-tural activities and tourism, and he wasinstrumental in bringing Manifesta, aroving arts festival, to the city. This year,Manifesta is using Palermo as a stage onwhich to consider some of our time’smost pressing dilemmas.

“It’s a migrant biennial. And Palermois a migrant city,” said Mr. Orlando.

Sicily has long been at the crossroadsof Africa and Europe, the Middle Eastand the Americas. Phoenicians, Arabs,Greeks and Normans left their often glo-rious cultural and architectural markson Palermo long before World War IIand a period of Mafia-driven real estatespeculation and neglect left ugly scars.Muslims, Christians and Jews lived onthe island in harmony for hundreds ofyears. Even the plants are mostly im-ports — the Sicilian lemon originated inthe Middle East.

The flow of humans is one of Manifes-ta’s primary themes. Another is humaninteraction with nature: The exhib-ition’s title comes from a 1997 essay bythe French landscape architect GillesClément that presents the notion of hu-man beings as Earth’s gardeners.

“You can see the world’s crisesthrough the lens of Palermo, in a con-densed way,” said Hedwig Fijen,founder and director of Manifesta. “Theexhibition asks, ‘With all the issueswe’re dealing with today, how is the hu-man being still in charge of the gar-den?’”

As the exhibition “mediators” (thisManifesta avoids the word curator),Bregtje van der Haak, Andrés Jaque, Ip-polito Pestellini Laparelli and MirjamVaradinis have planted interdiscipli-nary works by more than 50 artists, ar-chitects and thinkers across 20 venues,ranging from long-neglected palaces toPalermo’s lush botanical garden.

In the Moorish halls of the seaside Pa-lazzo Forcella de Seta, “Untitled (NearParndorf, Austria),” by the Irish artistJohn Gerrardis, uses video game tech-nology to reconstruct the site where, inAugust 2015, an abandoned truck wasdiscovered on an Austrian highway,filled with the suffocated bodies of 71 mi-grants.

The large-screen work shows police

marks on a highway shoulder outliningthe vehicle’s location, as well as a stainof leaked bodily fluids. “Seventy-onepeople were lost here. Each had a spec-trum of possibilities, now lost. Let’s notforget that. Let’s mark it,” Mr. Gerrardsaid of his digital memorial in an inter-view.

Several artists address the issue ofsurveillance. Among them is “Con-nected by Air,” by the Amsterdam-baseddesigner Richard Vijgen, which is pro-jected on a ceiling in the Palazzo Aju-tamicristo. Reminiscent of a planetar-ium display, it traces not constellationsbut real-time data from aircraft, wire-

less signals and satellites in the skyabove Palermo, reminding us that we’renever not being watched.

To create “Signal Flow,” the Americanfilmmaker Laura Poitras collaboratedwith the Danish journalist Henrik Molt-ke and film students in Palermo.

“We learned how essential Sicily is forthe U.S. military, both in terms of com-munications and the drone program,”said Ms. Poitras, explaining that signalsfrom drone operators based in theUnited States are relayed to their tar-gets through satellite dishes recently in-stalled in Sicily and vehemently pro-tested by local activists; an older United

States Navy base has been on the islandsince 1959. The installation’s center-piece is a meditative short film of a relaysite and its surroundings. It was surrep-titiously filmed with a drone, turningdrone surveillance back on itself.

Such documentary pieces are starkreminders of our darker realities, yetthis Manifesta also celebrates beauty,hope and possibility. In the Palermo Bo-tanical Garden, established in 1789 andhome to 12,000 species, artworksemerge from the foliage. The Colombianartist Alberto Baraya collected Paler-mo’s decorative artificial plants and ar-ranged them taxonomically amid real

ones in the garden’s greenhouse. And ona screen in a grove of bamboo stalks, thevideo “Pteridophilia,” by the Chineseartist Zheng Bo, follows seven youngTaiwanese men who engage in intimatecontact with ferns: “plant porn,” per-haps, but weirdly compelling.

Many site-specific communityprojects, including a garden plantedwith residents of a social housing projecton the city’s outskirts, are the result ofextensive research conducted as the ex-hibition took shape. The Dutch architec-ture firm OMA led a deep study of thecity through data analysis and inter-views with residents, culminating in abook called “Palermo Atlas.”

“Manifesta can be a mirror of a possi-ble Palermo, a mirror of the future,” Mr.Orlando said. “It’s not a temporaryevent.”

“Art can instigate small changes,when it starts with respect and modera-tion,” said Marinella Senatore, an Italianartist who assembles public perform-ances based on gestures of protest. (Herdrawings and banners, made in collabo-ration with locals, will be on view untilManifesta ends on Nov. 4.) On Manifes-ta’s opening weekend, her “PalermoProcession” featured 300 participantsincluding children, dancers, majorettes,and marginalized groups like prostitutesand mentally ill people, gathering at CityHall.

They marched, sang, and danced be-hind blind residents of the city whomMs. Senatore chose as parade leaders,snaking through the historical center forfour hours, picking up hundreds of Mani-festa visitors, tourists and rogue per-formers along the way. It was joyous andloud and empowering. “At the moment,the biggest issue, politically, is to learnhow to stay together,” Ms. Senatore said.“The participants say we changed thecity that night.”

The performance and the exhibitionas a whole honor Palermo’s multilayeredhistory, its problems and its potential.But they are also reminders that co-existence can be celebrated, and needn’tbe feared.

Examiningquandariesthrough art

Left, “Pteri-dophilia,” by theChinese artistZheng Bo, emerg-ing from the fo-liage at the botani-cal garden. Right,Palermo’s mayor,Leoluca Orlando,who aims to trans-form the citythrough culture.Below, “PalermoProcession,” apublic perform-ance organized bythe artist Ma-rinella Senatore,wound through thecity on Manifesta’sopening weekend.

Left, “Theater ofthe Sun,” a mixed-media installationby Fallen Fruit, atManifesta 12 inPalermo, Sicily.Below left, theColombian artistAlberto Barayawith visitors at hisinstallation in thecity’s botanicalgarden. Belowright, John Ger-rard’s “Untitled(Near Parndorf,Austria)” recon-structs the site ofthe gruesomediscovery of deadmigrants in 2015.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY GIANNI CIPRIANO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

“You can seethe world’scrises throughthe lens ofPalermo, in acondensedway.”

PALERMO, SICILY

2018’s Manifesta biennialbrings hot-button issuesto a history-laden port

BY KIMBERLY BRADLEY