Manifesta Journal 10

This issue of Manifesta Journal takes its title from "The Author as Producer," a lecture delivered by Walter Benjamin in 1934 in which he argues that the presumed autonomy of the creator is in fact always oriented toward a deliberate choice or, as he calls it, a "tendency": a political, social, and ethical position. Assuming that the activity of the curator is located within a social context, and that social interactions are determined by relationships of production, MJ #10 emphasizes the authorial role of curators in order to analyze their potential to engage with functional transformations, using their creations to change the models that define social relations. MJ #10 inquires into the different ways in which curators can be producers, expressing their ideas through their practices. Moreover, it seeks to question how such a role affectsthe definition of the profession and discipline, and how the curator, forced to operate within the framework of the culture industry and negotiate elements such as entertainment, distraction, and mass consumption, can withstand these external conditions and invent strategies of resistance and critique within the format of the exhibition.