Although it has been at least three decades since heavy industry collapsed in Germany’s Ruhr Valley, the name ‘Ruhr’ still conjures up forbidding images of fiery chimneys, mountainous slag heaps, and coal-blackened miners emerging from the dark depths. Even those who know that, at 6 million inhabitants, this leafy agglomeration of 50-plus towns is Europe’s third-largest conurbation, probably do not visualize it as a flourishing art hub.

And yet, as Manifesta founder and director Hedwig Fijen points out, ‘All our invited foreign colleagues exclaim, “We’ve never seen an area with so many art festivals and museums!”’ Indeed, so rich is the offer that, for its 16th edition, the Manifesta team sought ‘to include something other than what the Ruhr already does very well, which is art exhibitions.’ In what is Fijen’s last Manifesta, interventions in four major Ruhr towns – Bochum, Duisburg, Essen, and Gelsenkirchen – focus on the human stories behind the region’s industrialization, its potential as an urban model, and the endangered heritage of its postwar churches.

‘In exchange for closing the mines and blast furnaces, there has been an emphasis on cultural funding and support,’ explains Fijen. Many former industrial sites have become museums, parks, and arts spaces, such as the mighty Zollverein, a former Essen coal mine that is now a Unesco World Heritage Site; Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, a disused steelworks converted into a spectacular park hosting festivals and events; and Duisburg’s Museum Küppersmühle, a gigantic grain silo transformed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron to house the Ströher Collection of German postwar art. Historically the arts have had a stronger presence than many people realize, thanks to the enormous wealth the region once produced. ‘In the decades after World War II, Duisburg was one of the few German cities that were net contributors to the country’s economy,’ says Susanne Breidenbach, head of Galerie m, who recently moved her sales space there from Bochum. ‘Now, everybody looks down on Duisburg as poor. In 1956, the town founded Deutsche Oper am Rhein [German Opera on the Rhine] and kindly invited Düsseldorf to be part of it.’

Among the historic institutions, Essen’s Museum Folkwang – whose impressive core collection was put together by art patron Karl Ernst Osthaus (1874–1921) – is the most internationally renowned, boasting a David Chipperfield extension completed in 2010. ‘The Ruhr’s industrial story has been told over and over again. For people from outside, it looks like this is the only narrative,’ says its director Peter Gorschlüter. ‘We hope that Manifesta will help change that, but also modify the perspective of those who live here.’ One aspect where the biennial might make an impact is urbanism. ‘We tend to complain that the region is disconnected and difficult to navigate,’ explains Gorschlüter, ‘but Manifesta posits the conurbation as a pilot for the 15-minute city. Unlike a centralized city with a periphery, it is made up of the smaller communities and neighborhoods you need for a good life.’

This is not the first time global attention has turned to the area: 16 years ago the Ruhr was a European Capital of Culture. That event’s major legacy was the creation of RuhrKunstMuseen, an association of 21 art museums in the region that, as well as the Küppersmühle and the Folkwang, includes Bochum’s Kunstmuseum (housed in a 1983 building by Jørgen Bo and Vilhelm Wohlert, the architects of Denmark’s Louisiana Museum of Modern Art), Duisburg’s Lehmbruck Museum, and Bottrop’s Josef Albers Museum. ‘It’s not just a promotional label, but a real organization with an annual budget,’ explains Gorschlüter. ‘The 21 museums undertake major projects together. For example, we’re just finishing a 3-year education program that included thousands of young people across the Ruhr. We’re trying to promote the region nationally and internationally while at the same time speaking to local audiences.’

Reaching Ruhr audiences has become a key focus these past 25 years following demographic changes that have seen significant migration from countries such as Turkey, Syria, and Poland. As Stefanie Reichart, a member of Zollverein’s executive board, explains, ‘the Ruhr region has become more diverse, more international, and also more complex in terms of its social realities. That is why we are particularly keen to reach a young audience, since young people will be the ones who decide Zollverein’s future.’ Initiatives include a cooperation with the Stone Techno festival, which combines ‘the architectural uniqueness of the World Heritage Site with electronic music and international club culture,’ she explains. The performing arts in general have a strong presence, as shown by Deutsche Oper am Rhein, the Ruhrtriennale – a summer festival currently under the artistic direction of Belgian theater director Ivo van Hove – and RuhrBühnen, a network of 11 publicly financed theaters run on similar lines to RuhrKunstMuseen.

Another way to broaden outreach is to remove barriers, as the Folkwang did in 2015 when it became the first German museum to abandon admission fees to its permanent collection. ‘Visitor numbers increased fivefold,’ says Gorschlüter. ‘A third are local and another 20% to 30% regional.’

Heilig Geist is just one example of a growing phenomenon that Manifesta highlights, namely the fate of the thousands of churches the ecclesiastical authorities are abandoning as their congregations dwindle. ‘There are currently around 3,000 disused churches in the Ruhr,’ says Fijen, ‘and 22,000 more will close across Germany in the coming decade. Many of these community spaces are in danger of disappearing.’ In a bid to stimulate debate around their future, Manifesta now occupies 12 Ruhr churches with artworks by 106 artists and collectives from 30 countries, including established names such as Mona Hatoum, Alicja Kwade, Wilhelm Sasnal, Superflex, Nil Yalter, and other intriguing artists such as Pınar Öğrenci, Augustas Serapinas, and Abbas Zahedi, to name just a few. ‘During World War II, the Ruhr was 95% bombed. It looked like Gaza does now,’ explains Fijen. ‘Afterwards, there was a need for denazification, a process in which the ecclesiastical authorities played a role. They felt they needed new symbols for democracy, so invited modern architects and artists to design the postwar churches. Five or six of ours are of international architectural significance. They’re mind-blowing!

Although the Ruhr may have a reputation for post-industrial deprivation – Gelsenkirchen is officially Germany’s poorest town – there is still enough wealth to sustain a healthy commercial gallery scene. As Jiny Lan, a Bochum-based artist from China, explains, ‘I run studios in Düsseldorf and Berlin, but one of my best galleries is in Essen – Kunst-Raum Schulte-Goltz-Noelte.’ Though she works nationally and internationally, Susanne Breidenbach saw only advantages in staying in the Ruhr after leaving Galerie m’s historic Bochum home. ‘It’s so green, and yet the transport connections make it very easy for international visitors to come. They always tell me it feels like a holiday when they visit.’

While opportunities for arts consumption are legion in the Ruhr, what about artistic production? ‘There’s a vibrant, rather underground scene with a lot of Kunstvereine [artists’ associations],’ says Isabel Friedrich, the Essen-born, Frankfurt-based painter and artistic director of Kunstraum Heilig Geist, but the region lacks the art schools needed to make it grow (Folkwang University for the Arts does not offer fine art, but rather music, performance, and design). As a result, the most talented students are oriented toward institutions in the wider Rhine-Ruhr area, in cities such as Cologne, Düsseldorf, or Münster. Nonetheless, says Gorschlüter, ‘as people leave Berlin, where rents are now so high, they’re starting to come here. Perhaps it’s the beginning of a movement that will strengthen in the coming years. Culturally speaking, the region is becoming more and more interesting, and there’s still more freedom to do things.’ Manifesta, it seems, arrived at exactly the right moment.