Hedwig Fijen, the founding director of Manifesta, the nomadic European biennial launched in 1996, has announced she will depart on October 5. Fijen began working on the platform in 1991 under a commission from the Netherlands Office for Fine Arts, and oversaw editions in cities including Rotterdam, Palermo, Pristina, and Barcelona. The supervisory board has appointed Emilia van Lynden as general director and Catherine Nichols as artistic director to lead future editions, starting with Manifesta 16 in Germany’s Ruhr Valley this year and Manifesta 17 in Coimbra, Portugal, in 2028.
Fijen’s departure marks the end of an era for a biennial that redefined the format by integrating art with social and urban research, commissioning over 1,000 site-specific works and nurturing a generation of curators and artists. The leadership transition signals continuity but also a new chapter, as van Lynden and Nichols co-develop the biennial’s interdisciplinary mission, which has become a model for engaging local and international audiences amid challenging geopolitical contexts.