Manifesta 16, the travelling art biennale, has taken over a dozen tiny churches in Germany's Ruhr region, aiming to revive communities ravaged by deindustrialisation, mass unemployment, and environmental decline. Until October, 12 of the so-called Pantoffelkirchen, or 'slipper churches'—so named because they were built close enough to housing developments for churchgoers to walk in their slippers—will host artworks that range from a giant printed pigeon to a basketball court that triggers organ blasts.
A Region in Decline
The Ruhr conurbation, the third-largest urban area in western Europe, was heavily destroyed during the second world war, with about 80% of its sprawl reduced to rubble. In response, the newly formed Diocese of the Ruhr built hundreds of Pantoffelkirchen during reconstruction. Today, these churches are declining sharply: estimates suggest up to 300 are disused or derelict, with 100 sold off in the last year alone. The region itself is now poorer than east Germany, with Gelsenkirchen recording the highest vote for the far-right AfD and the highest unemployment rate in western Germany.
Manifesta 16 Ruhr avoids big, sexy industrial spaces, focusing instead on these tiny derelict churches in suburbs and housing estates. 'I don't care about churches, I care about neighbourhoods,' says Catalan architect and Manifesta curator Josep Bohigas. 'The churches were built for people who are no longer there.'
Art in Unexpected Places
The biennale's installations vary widely. In Gelsenkirchen's neo-gothic St Josef, an inflatable blue bubble containing a beach feels empty. At Essen's gothic St Gertrud, deconsecrated and now used by the local School of Fine Arts, upturned pews become abstract sculptures by Nasan Tur. The flagship is Duisburg's Kulturkirche Liebfrauen, a flamboyant modernist building turned arts centre in 2011. A two-screen film by Elizabeth Price juxtaposes memories of second world war bombing with the history of modernist Catholic churches built in postwar Britain for Irish immigrants.
Most powerful are the projects curated by Gürsoy Doğtaş, an art historian whose parents were Turkish guest workers. His team renamed two churches in Gelsenkirchen: St Bonifatius as the Ferdane Satır Tea Garden, after one of seven Turkish guest workers murdered in a 1984 arson attack; and Thomaskirche after Hava Güleç, a local factory worker. At Thomaskirche, a massive printed pigeon by Gülbin Ünlü overlooks Judith Raum's film about the German-engineered Baghdad Railway, which contrasts German industrialists' approval of docile Ottoman workers with photographs of Turkish guest workers' struggles in Germany 70 years later.
Community and Diversity
The churches also feature public weaving workshops and art by workers themselves. Abuzer Güler's expressionist Anatolian scenes hang on industrial frames in Thomaskirche, while Hanefi Yeter's 'When the Earth Burns'—a Diego Rivera-like Ruhr allegory from 1984—hangs in St Bonifatius. In Bochum, the disused Gethsemane church—built from rubble in 1947—hosts a bouncy castle shaped like a church bell by Belarusian artist Marina Naprushkina, emblazoned with 'We'll Never Go Back!'
One of the most engaging works is in Bochum's tiny St Ludgerus, turned into a basketball court by Catalan artists Cabosanroque. If you miss the net, a big blast from the church organ is triggered. 'You can sit in stands of church pews and watch a bizarre scene unfold, as local youth and biennale-hoppers, lit by stained glass, try to miss their goals,' the article notes.
A Fragile Future
These micro-modernist slipper churches were built on a consensus of shared beliefs. In the absence of such unity today, Manifesta's montage of protest, whimsy, and spatial experiment suggests diversity might create equally extraordinary spaces—if given the money and time, both usually lacking in places like the Ruhr. Manifesta 16 Ruhr runs until 4 October.
