Sonic Returns 

The week closes on Saturday, May 9 of May with Sonic Returns, an evening of music and performance, leaving Ocean Space resonating as a place where ideas of return are heard, felt, and collectively enacted.

Moving fluidly across genres and disciplines, this program brings together a diverse range of practices — from a ritualistic action by Verena Melgarejo Weinandt, a performance by Sofia Pozdniakova, Gabriele Tai, and Giacomo Salis in collaboration with Cosmogram, to an eclectic, free-form DJ set by the artist Diana Policarpo, and the hyperkinetic, multilingual rap over forward-facing beats of MC Yallah & Debmaster.

• 6 – 6:30pm | Braiding Connections : performance by Verena Melgarejo Weinandt

Drawing from gestures of the installation Weaving Connections at the east wing of the Church of San Lorenzo, three performers connect the two waters that flow around Ocean Space through a large braid made with Alcantara material.

• 6:45 – 7:30pm | X_Y_Z: performance by Sofia Pozdniakova, Gabriele Tai, Giacomo Salis in collaboration with COSMOGRAM

The performance continues Cosmogram's exploration of the sonification of large spaces, in which sound is articulated as connection and invisible geometry. Giacomo Salis and Gabriele Tai, on percussion and cello respectively, define two distinct acoustic poles, activating the resonances of the Church of San Lorenzo, while Sofia Pozdniakova crosses the space with the shifting trajectories of her voice. A multi-channel system extends and delocalises the sound sources, building connections between different acoustic scenes, allowing the sound to expand and contract, continually redefining the perception of the environment.

• 7:40  - 8:30pm | Astral Dreams: DJ set by Diana Policarpo 

A fluid, free-form listening session and DJ set for drifting and dancing, blending field recordings with an eclectic mix of experimental club, dub, cosmic groove, and disco. Astral Dreams unfolds as a shared experience of listening, attunement, and collective gathering.  

• 8:40 – 9:45pm | MC YALLAH & Debmaster 

Verena Melgarejo Weinandt is a German-Bolivian artist, researcher, curator, and educator. She is currently part of the ERC-funded artistic research project “Repatriates” at the Central European University in Vienna and has previously worked within the DFG Research Group “Knowledge in the Arts” at the University of the Arts Berlin. Working with performance, textiles, photography, video, and installations she addresses colonial and patriarchal structures, using her body and (ancestral) history as tools for collective transformation, exploring how our relationships with the fictive, the imaginary, and non-human beings are ways to (re)construct both individual and collective identities. Her artistic practice has been exhibited internationally at venues including La Virreina Centre de la Imatge (Barcelona), Manifesta 14 (Pristina), the 16th Bienalsur (Buenos Aires), Bienal Sur (Cúcuta 2019), nGbK Berlin, and Wiener Festwochen (Vienna), as well as at various international film festivals. She has also curated exhibitions at the Weltmuseum Wien, Wiener Festwochen, and District School Without Center (Berlin).

Diana Policarpo  lives and works between Lisbon and London. She is a visual artist and composer whose practice moves fluidly across artistic media including sound, sculpture, film, drawing, and installation. Currently working across visual arts, electroacoustic music and multimedia performance, her work investigates popular culture, health, gender politics, and interspecies relationships. Policarpo frequently draws connections between art and science, both in her installations and through direct engagement with landscapes and ecological or extractive systems. Her projects explore the rhythmic structure of sound as a tactile material, interwoven with the social construction of esoteric ideology.

Kenyan by heritage but born and raised in Kampala, MC Yallah is a powerhouse in the hip-hop scene with nearly two decades of experience. A core member of the influential Nyege Nyege crew, the remarkable rapper blends conscious and futuristic hip-hop, grime, punk, and trap, creating a distinctive sound all her own. Known for her rapid, tightly controlled flow, she delivers her lyrics in multiple languages, including Kiswahili, Luganda, English, and Luo. Fierce and intense, her lyrics draw from personal experiences, often addressing women’s issues while spreading powerful messages of integrity and self-determination. Her debut album, Kubali, released on Hakuna Kulala, features mind-bending productions by Debmaster and was included in The Wire's top 50 records of 2019. She later followed up with an EP in collaboration with electronic artist Eomac on Phantom Limb and another with DJ Die Soon on Morphine Records. Her highly anticipated second full-length album, Yallah Beibe, with productions by Debmaster, Scotch Egg & Chrisman, dropped in 2023 on Hakuna Kulala.

COSMOGRAM is a Venice-based music production company dedicated to developing projects that blend performance, studio practice and independent record production. Its activities take site-specific form in unconventional spaces and are rooted in long-term artistic collaborations with figures from the national and international music scene, developing a series of events and interventions in dialogue with institutions, artists and composers. At the same time, it pursues a practice of sound research in its own studio, located within the former Convent of Saints Cosma and Damian on the island of Giudecca, configured as an environment for experimentation and recording, dedicated to contemporary practices of musical research.

Sofia Pozdniakova is a composer, singer and performer trained in Russia and based in Venice, specialising in contemporary music, improvisation and musical theatre. She has taken part in numerous concerts, festivals and performances, including the Festival Aperto in Reggio Emilia, the Luigi Nono Festival, La Biennale and the Cinema Galleggiante in Venice, and the To Listen To Festival in Turin. She has developed musical projects with MMT Creative Lab in Milan, MARe/Museum of Recent Art in Bucharest, the Russian National Museum of Music in Moscow, the Luigi Nono Archive Foundation, the Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi and Palazzo Fortuny in Venice, the Berggruen Institute, Ocean Space and TBA21. He has collaborated with, amongst others, Carlos Casas, Gavin Bryars, Giuseppe de Benedittis, Guido Barbieri, Federica Lotti, Claron McFadden, Giovanni Mancuso, Anca Muresan, Veniero Rizzardi, Gabriele Tai and Emanuele Wiltsch Barberio. Since 2021, she has been working with Cosmogram, with whom he released the album “Un Soffio Elettrico” in 2024, together with composer Giovanni Mancuso. 

Giacomo Salis is a drummer, percussionist and timbre researcher. His research focuses on the relationship between sound, silence and noise, through the use of extended techniques and prepared instruments. Improvisation, understood as the performance of the unexpected, is the primary means through which he explores and redefines the potential of percussion instruments, challenging traditional configurations and functions. At the heart of his work lies a constant drive towards experimentation and the search for unconventional sonic solutions. He has collaborated with, amongst others, John Butcher, Julien Desprez, Nate Wooley, Eric Chenaux, Luca Venitucci, Martin Mayes, Gabriele Mitelli, Paolo Sanna, Dalila Kayros, C.S. Bishop, Marcello Carro, Angelo Contini, Luiz Rocha, Adriano Orrù, Silvia Corda, Stefan Schmidt, Luca Santini, Stanislas Pili and Marco Ferrazza, releasing on independent labels such as Confront Recordings, Tsss Tapes, Grisaille, Falt and Plus Timbre.

Gabriele Tai is a musician and composer who trained at the Venice Conservatory. His work is characterised by an experimental approach to sound creation, bridging the worlds of classical and electronic music while maintaining a constant focus on timbral exploration. He has performed as a soloist and in ensembles across Europe and Asia, collaborating with institutions and artistic contexts such as the Prada Foundation, Ocean Space, the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation, Fabrica, ARCUB and the Goethe-Institut, as well as with independent cultural platforms. Since 2023, he has been involved in the international project Lunar Ensemble for Uprising Seas by Petrit Halilaj and Alvaro Urbano. He has collaborated with artists such as Gavin Bryars, Claron McFadden, Sofia Pozdniakova, Giovanni Mancuso and Emanuele Wiltsch Barberio, developing works spanning performance, visual arts and music for images. In 2019, he co-founded the Quartetto Obliquo.