Biennale de Québec

From Québec City to Braga: Two Manif d’art 12 Artists to Exhibit in Portugal

Publish on 25 August 2026

A few months after the close of Manif d’art 12 – The Quebec City Biennial, two works presented during the Biennial will continue their journey on the international art scene.

From September 17 to October 18, 2026, artists Elias Nafaa and Giorgia Volpe will exhibit in Braga, Portugal. Their works will be presented respectively at the MUZEU – Thought and Contemporary Art dst and ZET Gallery, two venues dedicated to contemporary art.

This collaboration is a direct outcome of Presenters’ Week, organized during the twelfth edition of the Quebec City Biennial. It demonstrates how connections made in Québec City can develop into tangible opportunities for artists to present their work internationally while contributing to Manif d’art’s international reach.

A Professional Encounter Becomes an International Project

From February 28 to April 19, 2026, Manif d’art 12 – The Quebec City Biennial brought together more than 60 artists from Quebec, Canada and abroad across 41 venues in the greater Québec City area. Presented under the theme Breaking the Ice, the edition explored issues including territory, resistance and transformation.

During the Biennial, Manif d’art welcomed several international arts professionals as part of its Presenters’ Week. The initiative was designed not only to introduce them to the artistic practices presented during the Biennial, but also to foster connections between Quebec artists and representatives of international cultural institutions.

Among the participants was Helena Mendes Pereira, Executive Director and Curator of MUZEU. Her visits to the Manif d’art 12 exhibitions and conversations with the Manif d’art team and curator Didier Morelli led to invitations for Elias Nafaa and Giorgia Volpe to present their work in Braga.

The project demonstrates that the Biennial is more than an event taking place over a few weeks in Québec City. It also serves as a platform for encounters, networking and professional development, with outcomes that can continue long after the exhibitions have closed.

Two Manif d’art 12 Works Cross the Atlantic

Elias Nafaa — À manipuler avec soin

Presented at La Chambre Blanche during Manif d’art 12, the installation À manipuler avec soin transforms representations of weapons of destruction into fragile and delicate glass objects.

Here, glass becomes both a material that carries memory and a threshold between distancing oneself from trauma and becoming immersed in it. The work addresses violence, migration, diasporic experiences and the complex relationships between destruction, care and transmission.

Elias Nafaa is an artist-researcher who lives and works between Montreal and Beirut. Through sculpture, moving images and archival interventions, his practice examines, among other themes, infrastructures that claim to provide protection but can also reproduce different forms of violence.

In Braga, À manipuler avec soin will be presented in the Laboratoire space at MUZEU.

Voir l'exposition

Giorgia Volpe — Ausculter le plafond

With Ausculter le plafond, Giorgia Volpe transforms a deliberately absurd gesture into a reflection on the housing crisis and our relationship with the spaces we inhabit.

In this video work, two performers dressed for winter probe the ceiling of a room using long poles. Their movements recall those of people testing the strength of a frozen lake. Here, however, it is not the ice being examined, but an interior space that becomes a symbol of vacant properties and the difficulties of accessing housing.

Presented as part of Manif d’art 12’s Public Art program, the work invited audiences to see an everyday space in Québec City from a new perspective.

Giorgia Volpe is a multidisciplinary artist based in Québec City. Her practice encompasses public art, performance, video and relational interventions. She uses objects and gestures drawn from everyday life to explore relationships between the intimate and the collective, inside and outside, as well as the social and political dimensions of inhabited spaces.

In Braga, Ausculter le plafond will be presented at ZET Gallery, a contemporary art gallery located in the heart of the city.

Voir l'exposition
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