Oceanic Phantasmagorias. Daniela Zyman

Zyman analyzes how maritime law, in particular Hugo Grotius's concept of "free seas", legitimized a system of racial and extractive exploitation. The oceans, transformed into ownerless spaces (res nullius), facilitated trade and slavery, where captains turned men into commodities. The essay also discusses how this logic rendered invisible the politics of death, or necropolitics, that persist in today's capitalist structures. Finally, Zyman suggests that the "ghosts" of the past - marginalized historical figures and ideas - help us to decipher history and understand how the ideologies of the past continue to influence the present and shape our future.

7:30pm: followed by a conversation between Macarena Gómez-Barris, Iván López Munuera, Daniela Zyman. Moderated by Álex Martín Rod.

Daniela Zyman

She is curator and artistic director of Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary - TBA21, where she has played a fundamental role in developing its programme exhibitions and commissions since its inception, organizing over twenty exhibitions and catalogs. Over the past three years, it has organized a trilogy of exhibitions based on the Thyssen-Bornemisza contemporary art collection at the C3A in Cordoba Abundant Futures, Remedies and Ecologies of Peace (until March 2025). Next year, the artist's Al-Tariq will open its Franco-Lebanese doors. Tarek Atoui and an ecological reading of the Thyssen-Bornemisza collections at the Thyssen Museum in Madrid.