UNREST

MaHalla, itself a production space for art, once again serves as a venue and stage for creative artists, aiming to engage art audiences, interested visitors, and the local community alike.

“Unruhe” is a group exhibition about the state from which art emerges. The focus is not on the current political climate, but rather on that inner restlessness that often accompanies artistic work for a long time before it becomes visible. Heightened awareness, tension, doubt, and perseverance are not here the subject of the art, but rather its prerequisite. While many exhibitions respond to the world, this show turns its gaze toward the place where artistic works originate.

The exhibition brings together artists with whom a personal and artistic exchange has developed over many years. On view are key works and new pieces created specifically for the show, as well as rarely exhibited works and those that have long remained unrealized.

The former industrial hall has evolved into one of the most distinctive independent production spaces in Berlin’s art scene. Here, artists run a space that deliberately operates outside institutional routines and facilitates large-scale, experimental, and interdisciplinary projects.

Ukrainian artist Mariya Vasilyeva presents an installation created specifically for the exhibition, consisting of several animal parts, in MaHalla’s winter garden. Her works operate at the intersection of art, anatomy, and science. With great anatomical precision, she transforms real animal specimens, dissected found carcasses, and preserved embryos into sculptures. In a manner that is both dramatic and poetic, the artist explores life, death, and transience—inevitably evoking associations with the situation in her home country.

While Mariya Vasilyeva uses animal bodies as a medium for transience, anatomy, and political metaphor, Stella Hamberg turns to the human figure as a site of existential self-evidence. Both artists work in the field of three-dimensional art, yet while Vasilyeva works with found organic materials and makes death the starting point for her sculptures, Hamberg creates her figures through a traditional engagement with sculptural materials. Both are united by the question of the body as a vessel of meaning.

This year, there is a special focus on artist collectives: Tokyo QQQ is traveling from Japan specifically for Friday’s performance. The queer performance group combines burlesque, poetry, and dance—including performances in wheelchairs or on the pole—and celebrates what makes each person unique. Through its three “Q”s—queer, quest, and quirk—Tokyo QQQ challenges societal notions of disability and brings together diverse life paths. And the musicians and performers of Melisma will captivate visitors for the third time, creating a special evening with their blend of music, performance, and shared experience.

One notable work is *Fallen Angel (2026)* by Austrian performance artist and set designer Wolfgang Flatz; it remains to be seen whether it will actually take place or be presented merely as an idea and an attempt at realization. The Munich-based performance artist is attempting to bring down a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 fighter jet by partially burying a decommissioned original in the ground. Yet failure, too, is a possible element of the work, as bureaucratic and logistical hurdles are part of the artistic process.

In parallel with her solo exhibition *Sewing* at the Miettinen Collection in Berlin, sculptor Hannah Hallermann is exhibiting wall-mounted objects. For the Nuremberg-born artist, material is a central vehicle of meaning: in this series, she transforms steel, iron, and resin into large-scale, movable sculptures reminiscent of horse blinders. Using the hydroforming technique, the metal forms are inflated with water under high pressure until they deform—a process that lies somewhere between composition and chance. Hinges allow for the adjustment of the field of view and the relationship between the interior and exterior. The objects serve as a metaphor for the constant adaptation of our consciousness in an age of information overload.

Premiere

Ralf Schmerberg celebrates the premiere of his new film *Indarella* (108 min), for which the filmmaker traveled alone through India for 216 days, creating a deeply personal, essayistic, visually striking, and shimmering work that captures chance encounters, culture, beauty, spirituality, and—for the restless—something entirely new.

Premiere: September 8, 2026, 8:30 p.m. in the Black Hall

Screenings: daily at 2:00 p.m., 4:00 p.m., 6:00 p.m., 8:00 p.m., and 10:00 p.m.

Bar

Frank Küster, former King Size bouncer and owner of the Georgia Bar, will ensure the right atmosphere with his team in the MaHalla basement: a few signature drinks and the sound of the Georgia Bar will be brought to Oberschöneweide, along with a surprise.

Artists

Anna Borowy, Tokyo QQQ, Maria Vasilyeva, Melisma, Jonas Burgert, Martin Eder, Lars Eidinger, Stella Hamberg, Wolfgang Flatz, Matthias Mross, Hannah Nitsch, Sebastian Pielles, Ralf Schmerberg

Additional artists will be announced shortly.

• Dates: September 8–13, 2026
• Opening: Tue, Sept. 8, 6:00 PM–12:00 AM, featuring the film premiere of *Indarella* at 8:30 PM
• Admission: 12 euros, 7 euros (reduced rate)
• Location: MaHalla Berlin, Wilhelminenhofstraße 76, 12459 Berlin-Oberschöneweide

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