Between Tides: Gatherings on Return

On Friday, May 8, join us at Ocean Space to delve into the themes of the current exhibition Tide of Returns through an artist talk and a symposium with international guests.

The event opens with an artist talk between Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll, curator of the exhibition, and artist Verena Melgarejo Weinandt moderated by Mark Rappolt, Editor-in-Chief of ArtReview. 

This is followed by the second session of the symposium Between Tides: Gatherings on Return which, set within the framework of the Tide of Returns exhibition, explores repatriation as a living, ceremonial, and polyphonic practice. By bridging Indigenous knowledge with transversal practices of return, the gathering interrogates Italy’s position in global restitution efforts and the decolonization of collective memory. 

Contributors include: Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll (artist and historian, Vienna); Wietske Maas (curator and researcher, Venice); Markus Reymann (co-director, TBA21); Verena Melgarejo Weinandt (artist and researcher, Vienna); Christopher Williams-Wynn (art historian, Berlin); Rasha Salti (researcher, writer and curator) and more to be confirmed.

Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll, born in Naarm (Melbourne) Australia, is an artist and filmmaker. She is a Professor of History and Director of the EU Horizon 2020 project REPATRIATES: Artistic Research in Museums and Communities in the Process of Repatriation from Europe and the collective of artists and researchers that are part of it. She earned a PhD in Art and Architectural History from Harvard University and is the author of the books Art in the Time of Colony; The Importance of Being Anachronistic: Contemporary Aboriginal Art and Museum Reparations; Botanical Drift; Bordered Lives: Immigration Detention Archive, The Contested Crown: Repatriation Politics between Mexico and Europe and the forthcoming Voyages of Belonings: Art and Repatriation, based on this project. Her artistic practice combines word and image montages in film and installations, giving voice to alternative narratives through text and performance. Her works have been presented in numerous international exhibitions and artistic research projects including at the Venice, Marrakech, Atlantic and Sharjah Biennales, ZKM, Manifesta, Wien Woche, Extracity, Savvy, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, MAA Cambridge, Royal Museums Greenwich, Frieze London, and the Wende Museum LA. She has won awards at Casablanca, Ethnokino and St Kilda film festivals.

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).

Wietske Maas is a curator, artistic researcher, and editor based in Venice. She has worked as curator at the European Cultural Foundation, Amsterdam (2008–2018) and at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht (2014–2025) where she convened exhibitions, public programs, collective study, and publishing projects as acts of critical publicness: questioning how publishing can become a site for shared conversation on art and life-in-common. Alongside this work, she has developed artistic research in diverse international contexts, investigating social and urban ecology as sites of transformative convivial assembly.