An die Arbeit!
Opening: Friday, June 5, 2026, from 7:00 PM;
Concert: Sweet Susie & Manni Montana, 9:00 PM
Exhibition: June 6, 2026 – July 5, 2026
Curated by: Ina Wudtke; film program curated by: Ulrike Jordan
Open by appointment:
Opening:
Friday, June 5, 2026, from 7:00 PM; Concert: Sweet Susie & Manni Montana
Film Screenings:
Saturday, June 20 at 7:00 PM Es kommt darauf an, sie zu verändern, Claudia von Alemann, BRD 1972/73, 54 min. OmeU
Friday, July 3, 2026, at 7 PM Ekmek parası – Geld fürs Brot, Serap Berrakkarasu, BRD 1994, 102 min. OmeU
Finissage (Closing Event):
Sunday, July 5, 2026, 3:00 PM – 6:00 PM Time capsule burial
Work is taking place around the clock in a wide variety of locations. But who are the people performing the labor that the machinery of capitalism needs to keep running? The exhibition An die Arbeit! (Work it!) creates a visual dialogue between the works of Vienna-based artist Susi Rogenhofer (aka Sweet Susie) and Lichtenberg-born artist Thomas Bratzke, who—together with cultural scientist Anna-Lena Wenzel—will create a participatory collage of voices and drawings for the show.
Susi Rogenhofer’s audio-visual series United Workers puts workers in the spotlight, making them visible and audible while showing them in all their human complexity. Since 2021, in collaboration with musician Manni Montana, Rogenhofer has been using cameras and audio recorders to explore worlds of production and labor in various countries—such as Austria, Mexico, and Namibia—and now also Berlin Lichtenberg. At the opening on Friday, June 5th, starting at 7:00 PM, Sweet Susie and Manni Montana will give a live presentation of a 21st-century workers’ music.
While researching the collection of the German Historical Museum, Thomas Bratzke came across a time capsule titled Treasure Chest for the Year 2000. As it turned out, former classmates had produced photos, letters, and drawings as part of a school assignment around 1989 at the 19th POS “Robert Uhrig” (today’s Schule am Tierpark). These items were stored in a chest and buried on the school grounds. Bratzke, who had moved to the West with his family and was therefore not involved in the original time capsule, now wants to repeat this experiment. He is inviting his former classmates, as well as young people currently attending school in Lichtenberg, to collaborate on Treasure Chest of Work – A Time Capsule for the Year 2050. In doing so, he and Anna-Lena Wenzel are exploring the following questions: How has the understanding of “work” changed since the “pioneer assignments” gathered in the original treasure chest? Bratzke and Wenzel will transform the collected and newly created visual and textual material into a wall piece, which will then be buried in a time capsule on the “after the butcher” premises.
An accompanying film program will examine female and migrant labor from a historical perspective.
Susi Rogenhofer (aka Sweet Susie, born 1971 in Vienna) combines art and music in her practice. Using film as a medium, her stagings, performances, and installations—primarily set in public spaces and realized for platforms such as the Wiener Festwochen—negotiate social and ecological questions. In her work, she provides insights into various lived realities, such as those of workers, making them visible and audible to create a public presence for those underrepresented in the existing order. Her previous experience as a club operator at Vienna’s Flex (1995–2007) and as an internationally active DJ and electronic musician continues to influence her artistic practice today.
Manni Montana (Manfred Schmeczka, born 1968 in Vienna)
Electronic musician and social worker Manni Montana began his career in the 1980s as a bassist in post-punk and industrial rock bands, before turning to electronic music in the 1990s. With the duo BASK and later as a solo artist, he released internationally successful records on Dope Noir Records. In 2010, he founded the project CONTACT with Sweet Susie and worked with Franz Hautzinger, amongst others. Today, he devotes himself to new sound experiments in projects such as United Workers.
Thomas Bratzke (aka ZASD, born 1977 in Berlin)
is a sculptor who has worked since the early 2000s with an expanded definition of sculpture that incorporates space, bodies, signs, and social processes. In his films and installations, Bratzke processes autobiographical experiences from his childhood in the GDR.
Anna-Lena Wenzel (born 1980 in Hamburg)
is a writer and artist. She writes mainly about art and for artists, preferably in the form of interviews (including for the ifa-Galerie and the nGbK). In 2022/23, as part of the exhibition Klassenfragen – Kunst und ihre Produktionsbedingungen (Class Issues – Art and its Conditions of Production) at the Berlinische Galerie, she engaged intensively with the working conditions of cultural practitioners. From 2019 to 2025, she was co-director of the project space Kleiner Raum für aktuelles Nichts in Kreuzberg.
With friendly support by:
