Het Zuid Manifest: I Love Carlos
Full Program

From 28 to 30 March 2025, from 11:00 until 19:00, Rib presents the first edition of Het Zuid Manifest: I Love Carlos, an art festival that transforms Charlois into a living exhibition environment. During the three days of the festival, visitors can experience art in 15 unconventional locations, the majority of which has never been opened to cultural purposes before. The festival also offers two tours—one on foot and one by car. Attractiepark Rotterdam opens its doors to the public for the first time with guided tours, offering a rare insight into the creative vision of the owner Hennie van der Most whilst the theme park is still under construction. Taxi Travis, run by Charlois residents, drives visitors around the district in their own private car to one of the locations of Het Zuid Manifest—you can choose which one. They don’t take you there directly, but will show you some other meaningful places on the way and share their personal story. Each ride is a different journey.

Prior to, during or after your visit, you can listen to Rib’s The Last Terminal Radio complementing your experience.

Read the full program below and find our digital map here.

Subway Pool Café
Wolphaertsbocht 196
Works by: Katarina Zdjelar, WET Film

Subway Pool Café, a former cinema now transformed into a pool bar, will host four video works: one by Katarina Zdjelar and three selected by WET Film. 


In Untitled (A Song) (2016), Katarina Zdjelar records a group of four young musicians spending a night in a music studio. Nothing really happens, but this “nothingness” is impregnated with details and fragments, just like the silence is impregnated with noise and its musical organisation. Anxiety interlaces with harmony.

WET Film will show three films exploring various generations. Grandmamauntsistercat (2024) reimagines a matriarchal lineage through the eyes of a child. Originally intended as communist propaganda, the material is transformed into a site of auto-fictional memory, where the Slavic witch figure Baba Yaga emerges as a prehistoric goddess of resistance. On the brink of Poland’s accession to the EU, Mark and Piotek, two unemployed thirty-year-olds, leave their hometown in search for a better future in London. A Bar At The Victoria Station (2003) captures their struggles with economic hardship, homelessness, and the dream of building something of their own. In recent years, Poland has become one of the world’s leaders in accepting migrant workers, yet these individuals remain largely excluded from political participation. Immigrant, take a vote! (2020) examines this contradiction by staging an impossible event: a symbolic vote for non-citizens.

^{Opening times: Friday – Saturday, 11:00–19:00. Sunday: 13:00–19:00.}

Super Sam
Wolphaertsbocht 212
Work by: Anna Łuczak (WET Film)

SUPERSAM.NL (1989–2004) is a video compilation by Anna Łuczak, co-founder of WET Film, presenting a selection of advertisements for Western products that aired on Polish television between 1989 and 2004. The compilation offers both a nostalgic and critical lens on the promises of consumerism and the construction of modern identity in post-communist Poland.

Stichting Historisch Charlois
Kaatsbaan 6
Works by: Clem Edwards & Alexander Iezzi, Jelena Novak

At Stichting Historisch Charlois, a local photography archive in existence since 1994, Het Zuid Manifest presents a film by Clem Edwards and Alexander Iezzi and photographs by Jelena Novak.

The film Femke Hears a Who follows Femke from Brabant as they navigate life in Rotterdam, accumulating fragments of memories and encounters like a magnet. The film offers a critical perspective on identity formation and at the same time is a kind of time document of Rotterdam South, as distinctive places like Zuidplein and thrift stores in the film have changed or no longer exist.

Love Songs (1972–2025) are black-and-white photos from Jelena Novak’s family archive show. They show her parents in the Bay of Vela Luka, on the Island of Korčula, Yugoslavia. Novak says about the photographs: “My parents’ whispers, laughter, heartbeats, humming, the sea breeze, the sound of waves, tender words, and the rhythmic pulse of the boat’s motor—all these sounds exist but remain inaudible in the photos, which feel like a kind of love songs. Falling in love is captured in the image, infused with sound, endlessly.”

^{Opening times: Friday – Sunday, 12:00–18:00. Option to buy coffee or tea (€1), soda’s (€2) and get free cookies.}

Sexshop De Barones
Boergoensestraat 66B
Works by: Max J.P. Postma (Gauli Zitter), Archeologie Rotterdam

In the window of De Barones, nine small statuettes of mostly Christian saints (Mary with child, Saint Catherine and Saint Anthony) from the archives of Archeology Rotterdam are displayed. These statues date between 1400–1550 and were found during several archaeological excavations in Rotterdam city centre. Inside the sex shop, visitors will be able to see multiple paintings by Max J.P. Postma, brought to Charlois in collaboration with Gauli Zitter in Brussels.

Attractiepark Rotterdam
Doklaan 60
Works by: Karel Appel, Jan Vrijman

More about the guided tours at Attractiepark and the film De werkelijkheid van Karel Appel (1962) by Jan Vrijman here.

Empty Shop
Katendrechtse Lagedijk 432
Works by: Mathew Kneebone, Shahin Afrassiabi

On the occasion of Het Zuid Manifest, Kneebone presents two new works that extend his installation Power Relations (2021–2024) and give it a new shape. One of the new works by Kneebone is Dwaallicht (2025), presenting something like a an “illuminated outage”. The work was inspired by a walk that Kneebone took around Daly City, California, which had been laying in darkness for three consecutive days because of a power outage. Kneebone noticed a jewellery stall, the only shop lit in the whole mall. It persisted inexplicably, siphoning a mysterious residual energy.

Shahin Afrassiabi has been painting a series of works based on a 1976 photograph of Francis Bacon taken by Francis Goodman in Bacon’s studio. These paintings are extrapolations of elements in the original photograph and can be described as portraits, still lives and abstractions. By translating and distorting the original photograph, Afrassiabi reflects on the act of art itself, filtering it through the lens of another artist and his own understanding of painting’s potential as a carrier of meaning.

Empty Shop
Katendrechtse Lagedijk 430
Works by: Laurent Dupont, Judith Kakon

In collaboration with Gauli Zitter, Rib presents works by Lauren Dupont and Judith Kakon. These works are seemingly simple yet complex at the same time. They are copies of copies, repurposed templates, and containers that, in their emptiness and form, are rich with meaning.

Nitrous Oxide (2024) by Laurent Dupont is a found cardboard box, repainted as a box using acrylic paint. Iris (2024) by Judith Kakon takes the form of industrially produced, standardized plastic containers used for transporting flowers. However, they are made of ceramic using a 3D-printing process, with colors and surfaces that differ from the originals due to hand glazing.

Bloemsierkunst Cyro
Wolphaertsbocht 81
Publication by: Slow Reading Club

At flower shop Bloemsierkunst Cyro, you can pick up a free publication with translations in thirteen different languages of Si muero en la carretera (1970) by Cuban writer Virgilio Piñera. This is the result of a collective translation session with Charlois residents earlier this year, led by the Slow Reading Club, a reading group founded by Henry Andersen and Bryana Fritz.

In February 2025, Slow Reading Club met with residents and together they translated the poem on the spot into Amazigh, Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Greek, Italian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese and Russian. There, translating a poem became an alibi for a conversation about language. When Piñera wrote Si muero en la carretera, he had been blacklisted from publishing in his home country of Cuba, due to his out homosexuality and increasingly critical stance toward the Castro regime. Since 2021, Slow Reading Club has been authoring bootleg translations of Piñera’s work, responding to various local contexts.

The occasion of Het Zuid Manifest is the most ambitious of these translations, emphasising the diversity of languages present in Charlois. Like all translations, this became a chance to think about the relationship between the context in which the poem was written and the socio-political context in which it was translated.

^{Opening times: Friday – Saturday, 11:00–19:00. Sunday: 11:00–16:00.}

Maastunnel North Side
Parkkade 30
Work by: Helke Sander

At the Maastunnel for cyclists and pedestrians, two artworks can be seen, one on the north and one on the south side. At the entrance on the north side, Helke Sander’s film From the Reports of Security Guards & Patrol Services Part 1 (1985) is shown in a loop. This 11-minute film shows a woman who seems to have no other choice but to risk her own life and those of her two children by climbing a hoisting crane. At the top, they release pamphlets that spread all over the city. Based on a true story.

Maastunnel South Side
Charloise Hoofd
Works by: Jelena Novak

On the south side of the Maas tunnel, on the front window of the security guard booth, you will find three small black-and-white photographs by Jelena Novak, titled Photo Songs (1972–2025). These photos are from her family archive and were taken during musical performances at the small utopian arts festival The International Artists' Meetings. With time, the photos have aged, yet the choreography of bodies, sailing, and sound continues to exude a sense of genuine energy.

Art Rotterdam Ahoy
Ahoyweg 10, Entrance and Intersections
Works by: Carola Dertnig, Shahin Afrassiabi and The Last Terminal Radio

This year, Art Rotterdam takes place at Ahoy in Rotterdam South. Rib is present in various guises.

Rib has its own booth at Intersections, where it will launch and broadcast The Last Terminal Radio together with artists and residents. The grinning Francis Bacon by Shahin Afrassiabi hangs in the back of the booth, like a mascot, while we air live performances, connect with our reporters in Charlois, and speak with passersby between the opening hours of the fair (11:00–19:00). Outside of those hours, a programme of music, stories and other artist contributions is aired from various locations. Radio hosts include Valerio Conti (Friday), Ash Kilmartin (Saturday) and Rib’s team (Thursday and Sunday). Tune in through Rib’s mixcloud.

At the entrance of Art Rotterdam, Rib presents revolving door (2001) by Carola Dertnig. The work was filmed and performed during Dertnig’s residency at the World Trade Center in 2001. The artist captures herself struggling with luggage in a revolving door, repeatedly getting stuck as bystanders attempt to push her through. In hindsight, the work takes on an eerie premonitory quality. Dertnig: “I realized there weren’t enough doors for people to enter and leave the buildings… Of course, the meaning of this piece changed completely after 9/11.” Her work resonates with the disruption and foresight in The Last Terminal—much as in Albert Lamorisse’s film Les vent amoreux. Lamorisse, haunted by premonitions of his death, died while filming over the Amir Kabir Dam for the Shah of Iran.

Kapsalon Charlois
Wolphaertsbocht 62B
Works by: Marwan, G

In hair salon Kapsalon Charlois, the collective artist-run practice space Marwan presents Regarding Property: Occupational Health & Safety Fund 2019–2025 and the videowork IM SORRY (2024) by G.

Regarding Property: Occupational Health & Safety Fund 2019–2025 is an artwork by Isabelle Sully and Valentina Curandi. A small portion of obtained subsidies is consistently but intermittently funneled into an Occupational Health & Safety Fund. For each artistic project, €50 is allocated to the fund, which the artist can use to implement a safety measure. This measure can be for the artist themselves, the space, its visitors, the surrounding street, or even the city—ultimately, the recipient decides how the fund is used. Over the past six years, the fund has supported a wide range of safety measures. Its continuation has been made possible by the work of Isabelle Sully, Valentina Curandi, Yin Yin Wong, and Matt Hinkley. IM SORRY (2024) by artist G is a video filmed in Marwan’s storage and boiler room. G channels her British politeness, repeatedly chanting “I’m sorry” while pointing at various objects. The video turns these apologies into a ritual, drawing attention to the maintenance and labor that sustain the space.

^{Opening times: Friday and Saturday, 11:00–18:00. Sunday, 12:00–16:00.}

Durum Time
Katendrechtse Lagedijk 365B
Works presented by: Laurenz

In the restaurant Durum Time, Laurenz presents documentation of the project Grandmotherhood (uncountable) Бабинство (непреброимо) they did in 2022 in Shabla, Bulgaria, in an artist-run space that a friend of theirs, Lazar Luytakov, started in the basement of his grandmother’s house. Laurenz invited 14 artists and cultural practitioners to contribute to the show by sharing a recipe for a dish or drink that reminds them of their grandmother. The recipes were printed on A3 paper tablecloths that were placed under each dish and by the end of the evening they were all stained by food, greasy fingers and the rain drops that fell.

Rib
Katendrechtse Lagedijk 490B
Works by: Lisa Ivory; gerlach en koop exhibit works by Steve Van den Bosch, Annaïk Lou Pitteloud, Shimabuku, Ismaïl Bahri, Gabriel Kuri, Hendl H Mirra, Mark Geffriaud, Ian Kiaer and Jacqueline Mesmaeker

The Last Terminal, Volume III Part 6: Colonotopia
27.03.– 27.07.2025

For the exhibition Binnen en buiten het kader at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 1970, Gerrit Dekker closed a gallery by closing two doors. There is a photograph documenting the empty room from the inside, taken at a very low vantage point. This is what you would have seen if you were lying on the floor and looked to the side. For Dekker, spending time in exhibition spaces was important. In a sense, his installations—though that term was not yet in use then—are the result of performances without an audience.

Dawn breaks the surface. The eight hours of Om zeven uur? Slapen. have separated everything in before and after. Now gerlach en koop continue and end their restaging of Was machen Sie um zwei? Ich schlafe. from 2020. For this last gathering gerlach en koop will display all works that correspond to the reintegration and melancholy of waking up. A true gathering therefore. The exhibition will be open and can be visited from 27 March onwards. The opening will be a month later, on 25 April 2025.

Lisa Ivory’s paintings suggest an evolving story with a clear arc, yet resist easy identification or sympathy. They challenge our sense of where we stand in relation to what we see, drawing us into a shadowy universe of nudes, skeletons, and domesticated monsters. In Part 6: Colonotopia, we will present a new series of her work.

Café De Spiegel
Katendrechtse Lagedijk 482
Work by: Annaïk Lou Pitteloud

The neon artwork Bar (Rotterdam) by Annaïk Lou Pitteloud has long played with perception: installed at Rib yet reading “De Spiegel”, the name of the café next door, it sparked confusion. Was Rib a bar, or was De Spiegel an art space? Part of a series celebrating places of popular culture, Bar (Rotterdam) pays homage to bars as sites of storytelling. The work now shifts again for Het Zuid Manifest, returning to De Spiegel and continuing its cycle of reflection.

Shimmer
Waalhaven Oostzijde 1
Presented during Taxi Travis with works by: Heman Chong, Renée Staal

The Library of Unread Books initiated by Heman Chong and Renée Staal is a growing collection of publications of all kinds, generously donated by people who didn’t get around to reading them. Especially for Shimmer, The Library of Unread Books has created a playlist for their own collection On The Waves with…. During Het Zuid Manifest: I Love Carlos festival On The Waves with The Library of Unread Books can be listened to in taxi’s driving to Shimmer, stopping by the port of Rotterdam, to watch the ships go by. 
On The Waves shares the music of Shimmer’s growing community. What they listen to while working, making, reading, thinking, writing, cleaning, or moving are influential to their practice. Also, we invite the contributors to pass on the invitation, thereby expanding the aural, joyously unrestrained, beyond our community and into new possibilities.