You are invited!
We invite you to join us for the ceremonial unveiling of the sculpture for Helene Weigel this Sunday, May 10, 2026, at 11:00 AM. The event will take place in the newly dedicated Helene-Weigel-Hof at the Berliner Ensemble. We look forward to celebrating this moment together with the Friends of the Berliner Ensemble and the public.
To honor Helene Weigel on the occasion of her 125th birthday, the Friends of the Berliner Ensemble have commissioned a newly created work of art. The sculpture “Für Helene Weigel” has been conceived by the students of Monica Bonvicini class, Universität der Künste Berlin. Publicly accessible, in the midst of the theater’s everyday life, as a visible sign of remembrance and a lasting homage to her work and her defining significance for the theater. The work invites you to pause – between stage, architecture, and audience.
The students approach Helene Weigel not as a historical figure, but as a central, still-relevant personality. As a woman who worked in an environment where female achievements were often overlooked, she stands for a defining form of strength. Her story reminds us of how many perspectives are missing from cultural narratives and how necessary it is to consciously expand them.
Working in a group with different backgrounds and artistic approaches, the collective negotiation of a shared form was central to the process. The resulting sculpture is not the result of a single idea, but a tapestry of perspectives forming a new, shared language.
The first draft was created as early as 2024. In the Helene-Weigel-Year 2025, a broad fundraising campaign under the title “A Sculpture for Helene Weigel” made its realization possible. Over 400 supporters have enabled the project with their donations.
“What better way to honour Helene Weigel – a woman of many talents who founded the Berliner Ensemble and turned it into a major theatre – than to entrust this task to a group of young artists who, through working together, are finding their own artistic voice and collectively expressing their ideas in this sculpture?” — Monica Bonvicini
More on the website.
Photos by Moritz Haase
Special thanks to Miriam Döring
Talk with Monica Bonvicini and guests
Universität der Künste
Hardenbergstraße 33
Zweiter Stock, Aula
Tuesday April 21 ::
13:00-15:00 – talk with Yuka Okamoto who researches Trostfrauen in Japan and Pacific Region, translated by Dorothea Mladenova from Uni Leipzig.
17:00 – 18:30 – meeting with the curator Joanna Warsza, an expert on monuments and memorial art
Wednesday April 22 ::
13:00 – 14:30 – meeting with Johanna Adam, the curator of the exhibition “Sex Work” at Bundeskunsthalle Bonn
November 3rd, 2024: The class gathered in Room 95a, Hardenbergstrasse 33, to kick off the new semester. The new students were welcomed, the studio was organized, and the class enjoyed a nice meal together: polenta with mushrooms under strip lights and candlelight, with discussions already starting on projects for the winter semester in Berlin.
The countdown is on: on May 10, the sculpture honoring Helene Weigel will be officially unveiled.
During the 2024–25 winter semester, the class worked closely with the Berliner Ensemble to develop a concept commemorating the theatre’s first artistic director.
Following a successful fundraising campaign by the Friends of the Berliner Ensemble, the project got underway last autumn.
Since then, the work has been taking shape through intensive production and preparation.
A look behind the scenes.
Stay tuned!
#classbonvicini #heleneweigel #blnensemble #udkberlin #berlinerensemble
The countdown is on: on May 10, the sculpture honoring Helene Weigel will be officially unveiled.
During the 2024–25 winter semester, the class worked closely with the Berliner Ensemble to develop a concept commemorating the theatre’s first artistic director.
Following a successful fundraising campaign by the Friends of the Berliner Ensemble, the project got underway last autumn.
Since then, the work has been taking shape through intensive production and preparation.
A look behind the scenes.
Stay tuned!
#classbonvicini #heleneweigel #blnensemble #udkberlin #berlinerensemble
Bodies for Control and Profit
Winter Semester 2025/26
As part of the seminar Bodies for Control and Profit, the Bonvicini class is engaging with the history of forced prostitution in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp during the National Socialist dictatorship.
In cooperation with the Friends’ Association and the Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum, the seminar brings together historical research, remembrance practices, and artistic perspectives.
For the opening session, we met with
Barbara Gstaltmayr,
and Tom Mustroph, both initiators and members of the Friends‘ Association,
Dr. Astrid Ley, Director of the Sachsenhausen Memorial,
and Mareike Otters, who works on the public programs and special exhibitions at the memorial.
We then screened
Das große Schweigen (1995)
by Caroline von der Tann and Maren Niemeyer,
followed by a conversation with the filmmakers.
RUNDGANG ROLL CALL
with Elke Biesendorfer (she/her).
@elkebiesendorfer
WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING TO SHOW AT RUNDGANG?
I will be showing my porcelain silver spiked spoon.
WHAT INSPIRES YOU OUTSIDE OF ART?
Interactions, functions, melodies, flow and coincidences.
WHATS YOUR EMOTIONAL SUPPORT SNACK?
Birria quesadilla.
THE WEIRDEST OBJECT IN YOUR STUDIO?
My grandfathers teeth.
THANK YOU ELKE!!
COME SEE HER WORK THIS WEEKEND IN 92.
_____
Slide 1&2: A porcelain spoon, painted silver — a nod to the phrase “born with a silver spoon” — symbolizing inherited wealth, privilege, and entitlement. But this spoon is lined with spikes. A symbol of comfort becomes one of pain.This contradiction lies at the heart of the piece: privilege can wound. It alienates. It often comes with invisible pressures and expectations that harm those who appear to benefit most. The work resists simplistic narratives of victimhood, offering a more nuanced perspective — that individuals within privileged systems may struggle, but they also remain complicit in cycles of excess, entitlement, and avoidance. Aware of issues yet decide to do nothing about it. the pain we inherit — and the pain we choose.
RUNDGANG ROLL CALL
with Marzia Mazzone (she/her).
@oderwat_______
WHAT INFLUENCES YOUR ART PRACTICE?
Containing my thoughts within a single topic has always been a challenge. My reflections are intersectional, often sparked by observing the city—an urban stage where the mechanisms of the neoliberal system unfold, influencing individuals both in their personal lives and as part of a broader social body.
WHAT INSPIRES YOU OUTSIDE OF ART?
Critical reflection and contemporary critique play a vital role in my creative process.
THE WEIRDEST PLACE/ STATE I HAVE MADE ART IN…
During a recent hospital stay for tonsillitis, I found unexpected calm on the 12th floor, where I was finally able to complete a long-standing project that I’m now eager to bring to life!
THANK YOU MARZIA!!
COME SEE HER WORK THIS WEEKEND IN 95a.
_______
Slide 1: Currently evolving, this work centers on site-specific interventions within construction zones, where the construction site itself embodies the complex dynamics of gentrification and recurs as a central theme throughout my practice.
Slide 2: “Q”A series of advertising posters, inspired by the glossy aesthetics of dream vacations, reconstruct—through a satellite perspective—the image of a construction site that evokes an ancient land, an alien heath, or a fantastical landscape surfacing from reality.The work challenges the rhetoric of desire, revealing a commodified landscape as a telling symptom of the systematic consumption of land and the enduring presence of a colonial imaginary that continues to shape space through extractive logic.(RUNDGANG WORK)
RUNDGANG ROLL CALL
with Seunghyun Choi (she/her).
@seunghyunhoho@_misaemunji
WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY WORKING ON - AND WHY?
I’m now working with the question „what is the corporeality and can we lose it?“.
DESCRIBE YOUR WORK IN THREE WORDS.
Space, Tool, Body (Object).
THEY ARE A TEN, BUT THINK THAT NAPS IN THE STUDIO COUNT AS STUDIO TIME.
Ten.
THEY ARE A SIX, BUT BELIEVE THAT THE BEST THINGS IN AN ARTIST STUDIO HAPPEN BETWEEN 2-5 AM.
Two.
THANK YOU SEUNGHYUN!!
COME SEE HER WORK THIS WEEKEND IN 92.
______
Slide 2: (Process) How to clamp a silicone arm.
Slide 3: Installation view.
Slide 4: (Process) Mouth on the wall.
Slide 5: Installation view.
