Belfast's burgeoning cultural and creative community is coming together in a bid to host Europe's largest contemporary art festival.

Artists and creatives as well as cultural and civic leaders are to meet this week in what is the first stage in creating a proposal to bring the Manifesta European Biennial of Contemporary Art to the city in 2014.

Held every two years, Manifesta is Europe's largest contemporary art festival, and has never been held in the UK or Ireland.

Every Manifesta event series last for three months, and each Biennale has brought over 100,000 people from Europe and beyond into the cities and regions which have hosted it, giving a major boost to the cultural tourism sector and a massive stimulus to the arts and cultural environment.

Led by Manifesta Chief Executive Officer, Hedwig Fijen, the delegation will meet representatives of the University of Ulster, the Arts Council, Belfast City Council, MAC, Ulster Museum and many more during their two day visit to assess the suitability of Belfast as a venue for the Biennial.

They will be escorted by Dr Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes, Head of the Research Graduate School of the University of Ulster's School of Art and Design in Belfast (pictured): "The response from the arts community to the idea of hosting Manifesta in Belfast has been magnificent," she said.

"We have a great story to tell, with our newly reopened Ulster Museum, with the MAC development and the enlarged campus at the University of Ulster, with the Crescent Arts centre and many other art spaces in the city.

"Bringing Manifesta to Belfast would offer an enormous showcase for international art in the city, as well as creating opportunities to bring to the attention of an international audience the quality of artistry and innovation found in Northern Ireland's creative sector," she said.

Artists from the University of Ulster have taken part in many Manifesta events over the years, and we're confident that the networks and links we have built up in the international art world, along with the support of the arts community in Northern Ireland will enable the construction of a really strong bid for Manifesta 2014," she concluded.

(BMcC/GK)