HIAP Talks launches the 2012 season in our new venue at Kiasma – Museum of Contemporary Art. We continue with a familiar line-up of high-profile artists and curators, originals and thematically-relevant speakers. Our focus, as ever, is on art and burning socio-cultural topics – such as the very well-attended Debtocracy event of last year.

This February we are pleased to welcome Hedwig Fijen, the founding director of Manifesta, who is currently organising its ninth instantiation “M9” in Genk, Belgium this year. Fijen promises to take the audience on a journey through the history of Manifesta, starting with its inception after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which gave the biennial its orientation as a platform for social change. Manifesta not only exists as the sole itinerant biennale in the world, moving every two years from one place to another, but is unique in its strategic focus on community-based projects with a long-term impact.

Hedwig Fijen will discuss the legacy of the biennial as a roving event, and the extent to which Manifesta can impact local and regional infrastructure. This will open into a dialogue with the local audience chaired by Marita Muukkonen and including an invited local commentator. What, will be asked, are the long-term benefits and short-term costs of a biennial of this type? What makes such large-scale, locally-engaged art events different from globally-branded museums?

Manifesta, Fijen says, has taken place in “ultra-peripheral areas that have not as yet been affected by the globalised culture industry”. These therefore enjoy a certain rejuvenation through the biennial, like is hoped for the former coal-mining city of Genk in Limburg, Belgium. Fijen has claimed that “through its role as a protagonist, Manifesta works towards forming relationships, and connecting arts communities” from multiple peripheries to multiple centres. Currently, Fijen is exploring the potential for the instantiation of Manifesta in the Nordic region.

HIAP Talks brings distinguished artists, curators and other practitioners in the field of contemporary art to Helsinki from around the world. Scheduled regularly for the last Thursday of the calendar month, it is fast becoming a jour fixe in the Nordic artworld.

HIAP Talks is curated by Marita Muukkonen.