Churches are increasingly empty, what will they become? The Manifesta biennial opening in Germany tries to answer

The 16th edition of the itinerant contemporary art biennial Manifesta, titled "This is not a church," will take place from June 21 to October 4, 2026, in the Ruhr region of Germany. Curated by Barcelona-based architect and urbanist Josep Bohigas, the biennial will be hosted inside and around twelve deconsecrated churches in Duisburg, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, and Bochum. Artists will repurpose discarded materials like old pews, broken windows, and organ pipes to create new works, while the program includes participatory events, workshops, summer schools, and a youth council called Youth Shift. The exhibition explores the postwar construction of over a thousand churches in the Ruhr as a symbol of West Germany's ideological rebuilding, and now asks what these empty spaces can become in contemporary life.

This edition matters because it directly addresses a pressing social and architectural phenomenon—the widespread abandonment of churches in Europe—by transforming them into sites for art, community gathering, and historical reckoning. Manifesta 16 Ruhr positions itself as a model for regeneration rooted in local proximity and memory, tackling issues of historical guilt, migration, labor, and urban renewal. By turning sacred spaces into public forums for sport, reading, mourning, fashion, and theater, the biennial challenges conventional notions of exhibition-making and tests how art can foster social progress and repair historical injustices.