In 2024, artists from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine participated in the donumenta Artist in Residence program WORLD HERITAGE REVISITED.

The ideas they developed are now being realised. From June 27 to September 30, 2025, Bojan Stojčić (BIH), Johanna Tinzl (AUT), Erika Velická (CZE), and Anna Zvyagintseva (UKR) will present their works at various locations in the urban space of the UNESCO World Heritage City of Regensburg.

The presentation of the interventions will take place on June 27, 2025, at the World Heritage Visitor Center of the City of Regensburg.

THE WRONGS OF BACK THEN, Marc-Aurel-Ufer, Regensburg

During her artist-in-residence stay, Tinzl came across a trade list at the World Heritage Visitor Centre. Alongside goods like honey, salt, copper, and tin, the list also included enslaved people. Furthermore, she found a depiction of an enslaved woman on a Roman-era funerary monument from around the year 200, discovered in Regensburg.

The ghostly faces of the sculptural intervention WRONGS OF BACK THEN, rising from beneath the city at the banks of the Danube, point to a history of coercion and oppression endured by enslaved people - especially women and children.

The artwork by artist Johanna Tinzl consists of four sculptures made of forged iron. It is dedicated to the enslaved individuals who were exploited, bought, or sold in Regensburg during Roman times (1st to 5th century) and the Middle Ages (10th to 12th century).  The sculptures resemble hand-drawn sketches and give the impression of emerging from the ground, from the historical layers of the city itself.

The international slave trade in Regensburg during the Roman period and the Middle Ages is well documented by scholars and supported by academic literature.

Sources:

• Dietz, Karlheinz / Fischer, Thomas: Regensburg zur Römerzeit - Von Roms nördlichster Garnison an der Donau zurersten bairischen Hauptstadt, Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 2018, S. 70 ff.
• Emmerig, Ernst: Slawen in Regensburg, Verhandlungen des Historischen Vereins für Oberpfalz und Regensburg, 138. Bd, 1998, S. 19 ff.
• Emmerig, Ernst: Regensburg als Markt für Sklaven aus dem Osten, in: Regensburger Almanach 1989
• Walhalla und Pretoria Verlag, 1988, S. 27 f.
• Wanderwitz, Heinrich: Regensburg, ein früh- und hochmittelalterliches Handelszentrum, in: Feistner, Edith (Hrsg.):
• Das mittelalterliche Regensburg im Zentrum Europas, Forum Mittelalter – Studien, Band 1, Verlagsgruppe Schnell & Steiner, 2005, S. 43 ff       
• Malcher, Gudrun J.: Die ersten »Regensburgerinnen« – Streiflichter von der Jungsteinzeit bis ins Mittelalter, in:
• Kätzel, Ute / Schrott, Karin (Hg.): Regensburger Frauenspuren – Eine historische Entdeckungsreise, Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 1995, S. 21 ff
• Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Legum Sectio II, Capit. Reg. Franc. Bd. II Nr. 253, S. 249 (Raffelstetter Zollordnung)
• Schönfeld, Roland: Regensburg im Fernhandel des Mittelalters, Verhandlungen des Historischen Vereins für Oberpfalz und Regensburg, 113. Bd, 1973, S. 7 ff