As part of Independent Curators International (ICI)’s series The Curator’s Perspective, Cuauhtémoc Medina, head curator of Manifesta 9 and recipient of the 2012 Walter Hopps Award for Curatorial Achievement, will discuss Manifesta 9in the context of rethinking the role of biennials as means of social and cultural intervention. Manifesta 9: The Deep of the Modern was the first Manifesta to intentionally leave behind the model of mega-exhibitions of contemporary art.Manifesta 9, staged in Genk, Belgium, in the summer of 2012, presented a dialogue between different layers of art, heritage and history, and proposed an experience of contemporary art that was immersed in a dialogue across generations, geographies, time frames and social projects as one of the forces that produces the world. Manifesta 9 explored the energy that emerges from the former mining communities of Belgian towns like Limburg, as presented in a museological essay on the ways that coal and the consequences of its widespread use affected, inspired and influenced modern art, and included a selection of contemporary works reflecting on the conditions of industrial production and labor today.