Manifesta 12 Research Studios is a platform that invites four European architecture universities to carry out investigations and actions on the urban territory of Palermo. One of the involved laboratories is the AA Museum Lab, a course run by Italian architect and curator Giulia Foscari at the Architectural Association in London. The “Preserving Delay” exhibition analyses the complex cultural scenario of Palermo, developing strategies to recognise and preserve the identity and intensity that characterise the Sicilian capital. Isolation, slowness and delay are seen as qualities to be preserved, to try to avoid the mistakes in which many “advanced” cities have incurred.

Among the presented projects: a research on the relationship between street art and gentrification, a reflection on the abusive landscape of Pizzo Sella, a “Sicilianity” Atlas based on the writings by the local writer Leonardo Sciascia, an analysis on the urban potential of votive shrines, a diffuse archive for Letizia Battaglia... Interacting with the local community, each student made an ephemeral intervention around Palermo. Every research is also shown as a publication at the Convento of Sant’Antonino, within an installation that reconstructs the project conceived by the student Mingyi Lim for Pizzo Sella. The scenography in which the research is presented is in dialogue with the general theme of Manifesta 12: the Planetary Garden.