Manifesta Coffee Break charted three meetings hosted by Liverpool Biennial and International Foundation Manifesta between 2002 and 2004 around contemporary visual art and curatorial work in a changing Europe. Political discussion had become dominated by emotionalised debates on limits to tolerance, enforced assimilation, re-awakened nationalisms and religious fundamentalisms. In a European project predicated on economic integration, it was exceedingly urgent to counter these reactionary populisms with renewed investment in cultural dialogue not as an oppositional objective but deliberatly as ‘means without end’. With contributions by Hannah Arendt, Giorgio Agamben, Irina Aristarkhova, Iara Boubnova, Ole Bouman, Nicolas Bourriaud, Dieter Lesage, Bruce Mau, Declan McGonagle, Anna Minton, Anna Pollert, Eyal Weizman and others.

Buy Manifesta Coffee Break