freelance art, film and video curator born in vienna, austria
lives and works in cdmx, mexico


hi, my name is oona. i am named after oona o'neill – charlie chaplin's last wife. like a curse tied to my name, this has probably shaped my interest in film. having visited countless galleries, i always felt alienated by video art being shown on a loop, minimizing the work, the time, the thought, the money that goes into producing it. my interest lies in expanding that space – creating a place that truly focuses on video art, and making this niche more accessible to more people.

my programming is shaped by my own interest in found footage pieces and archival works, combined with an educational purpose, an installative focus, and research-based inquiries.

hit me up for more information :)



PROJECTS


@ Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary



SOLARIUM (2017)
Unrealized project by Nicolás Paris
Installation
FLORA ars+natura, Bogotá


Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary and FLORA ars+natura join forced to realize Nicolas Paris project: Flora’s rooftop garden, a learning device, involving plants, artists, botanists, architects, garden enthusiasts and other people with related interests.

In Paris’ work, the distance between the viewer, the artwork and the artist is abolished and the art space, or the museum, is transformed into a place of precarious and unforeseen experimentation. Art is what happens when all of these factors combine. The museum becomes a tool for fostering exchange and opening up the chance to construct new forms of knowledge and understanding


[View..]




@ Book design: Irma Boom. Cover image: John Akomfrah, Purple, 2017, still (detail) © Smoking Dog Films. Courtesy Lisson Gallery. Video: Jaime Gorospe


THE COMMISSIONS BOOK (2020) Editorial
Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary:
The Commissions Book
STERNBERG PRESS, BERLIN 2020


Edited by: Daniela Zyman and Eva Ebersberger
Editorial Assistant: Oona Zyman
Design by: Irma Boom



Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary: The Commissions Book (Sternberg Press, 2020) is a vivid documentation of TBA21’s commissioning practice and the ethos of the foundation, which involves working directly with artists on some of the most urgent topics of our time. This volume is an anthology of new texts, visual material, and research on TBA21’s commissions, woven together with explorations of the processes and relationships that enabled them. The publication was inspired by the labor, dialogue, and collaboration it took to produce these works over the past two decades, and what it means to be their guardian. The book’s innovative design was conceived by the world’s foremost book designer, Irma Boom. A selection of smell molecules from trees, forests, and earth are embedded into print sheets made of robust natural fibers, which are covering and bookending the publication. The smell was recorded, replicated, and recombined by artist Sissel Tolaas as a special commission for the book. Honoring TBA21’s commitment to the environment, the book is made from sustainable materials, using 100 percent recycled paper.


with texts by: Atif Akin, Joan Anim-Addo, Magalí Arriola, Rakhee Balaram, Erika Balsom, Ute Meta Bauer, Bettina Brunner, D. Graham Burnett, Patrick Charpenel, Damian Christinger, Sebastian Cichocki, CM Live (Neelofar, Suraj Rai, and Shamsher Ali), Gabrielle Cram, Heather Davis, Angela Dimitrakaki, Georges B.J. Dreyfus, Eva Ebersberger, Charles Esche, Beatrice Forchini, Anselm Franke, Natasha Ginwala, David Gruber, Carles Guerra, Soledad Gutiérrez, Nav Haq, Eva Hayward, Stefan Helmreich, Stefanie Hessler, Václav Janoščík, Caroline A. Jones, Ruba Katrib, Lutz Koepnick, Cresantia Frances Koya Vaka’uta, Luca Lo Pinto, Sarat Maharaj, Chus Martínez, Margarida Mendes, Suzana Milevska, Vanessa Joan Müller, Heike Munder, Henning Nass, Sara Nadal-Melsió, Astrida Neimanis, Ingo Niermann, Sandra Noeth, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Boris Ondreička, Annie Paul, Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, Ignas Petronis, Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Filipa Ramos, Raqs Media Collective, Markus Reymann, Kathrin Rhomberg, Dan Richards, Ridykeulous (Nicole Eisenman + A.L. Steiner), Ralph Rugoff, Thibaut de Ruyter, Nadim Samman, Mirjam Schaub, Andreas Schlaegel, Cory Scozzari, Tsering Shakya, Chris Sharp, Jasper Sharp, Frederike Sperling, Andreas Spiegl, Charles Stankievech, Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza, Emiliano Valdés, Nicola Vassell, Franziska Sophie Wildförster, Eva Wilson, Slavoj Žižek, Daniela Zyman, Oona Zyman.


[View..]



@ Jannis Kounellis; Peace Now!



PEACE NOW! (2024)
Group show
Trinkhalle Bad Ischl
Kulturhauptstadt Bad Ischl Salzkammergut
31.08 – 17.09.2024


28 renowned artists take a public stand with manifestos for peace, creating 28 unique artworks in the form of posters that are made available to the public free of charge. “Peace Now! – The Artist’s Voice” is an exceptional art initiative for peace

.
MARINA ABRAMOVIC
SERGEI BUGAEV AFRIKA
BAZON BROCK
JULIUS DEUTSCHBAUER
KENDELL GEERS
G. GUTENBERGER
JENNY HOLZER
EDGAR HONETSCHLÄGER
FREDDIE JELINEK
DONALD JUDD
ILYA + EMILIA KABAKOV
ANISH KAPOOR
ZENITA KOMAD
JANNIS KOUNELLIS
HERBERT LACHMAYER
ANDREA LENARDIN
MARK MACK
PETER NOEVER
RAYMOND PETTIBON
WOLF dPRIX
EVA SCHLEGEL
KIKI SMITH
IV TOSHAIN
PAUL VIRILIO
MANFRED WAKOLBINGER
PETER WEIBEL
HANS WEIGAND
JAMES WINES



[View..]






@ Daniel Mikkelsen



XX ART FLANERIE FESTIVAL (2021)
"May you live in liquid times"

Group show
Kunstbogen, Vienna
21 – 28.07.2021


XX ART FLÂNERIE 2021 is dedicated to the theme "May you live in liquid times" and thus to an approximation of our present time with the help of cultural, regional and historical contexts. Special reference is made to the XXs of the 20th and 21st century.


with works by: Martin Grandits – Anna Vasof – Björn Segschneider – God's Entertainment/Super Nase & Co - Sarah Maria Rechberger - Laia Estruch - Simon Contra - Eduardo Ruiz - Luz Broto - Albert Sánchez Piñol - Kamen Stoyanov - Gedvile Tamosiunaite - Hui Ye - Ramiro Wong - Pille-Riin Jaik and Nazira Karimi - Tomasz Vollmann

Curated by : Georgij Melnikov, Ale Zapata, Lluís Lipp, Justina Špeirokaitė, Oona Zyman

[View..]








@ Third Born


SMILING IN SLOW MOTION (2026)
Screening exhibition
Third Born, CDMX
13, 14 and 18.08, 2026


Smiling in Slow Motion, is a three-day video screening program that approaches what Roy Scranton calls “the end of the world as we know it” as an ongoing condition rather than a single event. This end, does not manifest itself as a sudden incident, but as a slow process towards a dooming atmosphere that we have time to embrace. Amid AI systems escaping the sandbox, engineered cyborg-cockroaches, Silicon Valley techno-messianism, contemporary aesthetics are obsessed with reversing aging, and a world where simulations replace experience, the film program asks: where do we find ourselves now? At what point in the cycle of decay are we?

with works by: Manolo Arriola, Hanna Besenhard, Tina Daurova, Isaac De Reza, Jjjjjjerome Ellis, Dominic Gagnon, Kate Gilmore, Javier Gutiérrez Navarro, Melquiades Herrera, Matthew Hilvers, Stan Krzyzanowski, Claire Meekel, Linn Phyllis Seeger, Alfredo Salomón, and Stelios Ilchuk

Co-curated by: Aida Rebull and Oona Zyman



[View..]




Installation view: Smiling in Slow Motion (2026). @ Third Born








OFF SCRIPT (2026)
Screening
Third Born, CDMX
June 25, 2026


OFF SCRIPT stands in conversation with the current exhibition En Flujo (In Flux) . Structured as a double feature: THIRD BORN will host its first game night with works by Sami E. Nicolle, followed by a video art screening featuring works by Romeo Gómez López, Eglė Rakauskaitė, and others.

The OFF SCRIPT program focuses on films and videos that inhabit the space between rules and unruliness. Playful, ironic, and political, these works ask what it means to go off script: to interrupt norms, deviate from expected behavior, and open up moments of unpredictability, tension, and potential. Across the program, gestures of estrangement, humour, eeriness, and resistance reveal how moving images can unsettle familiar codes and suggest other ways of relating in the world.

with works by: Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, Romeo Gómez López, Eglė Rakauskaitė, Gustavo Artigas, Duane Michals, Lida Abdul, and Zbigniew Rybczynski

Curated by:  Oona Zyman


[View..]







EVER AFTER (2026)
Screening + Performance
Isla Project Space, CDMX
April 16, 2026


The afterhour marks the moment when the party stretches beyond itself—after the peak, when the dancefloor thins but refuses to end, and time begins to blur into an ever after that won’t quite settle. Conceived as an extension of the rave, this screening inhabits that threshold where bodies, sound, and affect linger in a state of heightened yet fragile intensity—seductive and slightly ominous, like a fairytale on the verge of turning.

Featuring: Megaworld, DJ Youtube, Eleonora Luccarini, Anhar Salem, Lorenzo Silvestri, Rustan Söderling

Curated by: Oona Zyman


[View..]








78,694 minutos: Excavating Archivo Jotxs with Emblematic Elusions (2026)

Book Launch: Screenings + Panel Discussion
Third Born, CDMX
March 29, 2026


In celebration of the publication Emblematic Elusions IV: A Glimpse into Archivo Jotxs, this open gathering brings together cultural practitioners to explore and revive Archivo Jotxs; a Mexico City–based research archive cataloguing over 700 films that trace the presence, distortion, and erasure of non-heterosexual, non-binary, and trans identities on screen.


[View..]






EN LA CIUDAD DE LA FURIA (2026)
Pop-up Screening
Third Born, CDMX
Art Week 2026
February 6, 2026

En La Ciudad De La Furia presents seven video works shown on a continuous loop. Installed in a market stall setup, the works are placed physically and metaphorically within the city’s own circuits of images, circulating alongside everyday visual economies.


with works by: Haig Aivazian, Cecilia Bengolea,  Susa Blaufuß, Cyprien Gaillard, Cinthia Marcelle, Signe Pierce, Carolina Vélez Muñiz


Curated by: Oona Zyman


[View..]