Open studios and Mensch Maschine Oases performance programme
On June 6th, E-WERK will open its artist studios and host a public programme of performances and talks in the Oasis co-built as part of the Mensch Maschine summer school curated by Something Fantastic. The artists in residence and the permanent studio artists will open their studios and share works in progress as well as ongoing research. Afterwards, talks, performances and music will unfold in the Oasis.
Programme
12:00: Doors open
14:00: Tour of E-WERK studios with artist talks and demonstrations
Participating artists: Mensch Maschine Fellows Phumulani Ntuli, Flora Weil, Edgar Fabián Frías, and Sepideh Behruzian, and permanent studio artists Christin Berg, Keturah Cummings, Alice Morey, Zu Kalinowska and Lucy Mattern.
16:00: Public programme in the Oasis with performances by Mensch Maschine Fellows Phumulani Ntuli, Flora Weil and Sepideh Behruzian
17:00: Performance by Bündnis Feuer und Flamme
18:00: DJ sets by dj meemaw and Disco Amore
This is a free public event that marks the end of the Mensch Maschine Summer School 2026, taking place at E-WERK 3-7 June 2026. The summer school programme is curated by architecture studio Something Fantastic and is part of the Mensch Maschine residency programme in partnership with the JUNGE AKADEMIE of the Akademie der Künste, E.ON Foundation and Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw.
About the Mensch Maschine summer school
The Mensch Maschine 2026 Summer School, curated by architecture studio Something Fantastic, will explore the topic of ‘Oases’ and is open to interdisciplinary practitioners from the arts, ecology, architecture, landscape design and more.
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Oases confront and complement a world where forests are dwindling, soil is eroding, and desertification is encroaching. In an increasingly poor and homogeneous environment, proliferating through direct or indirect human intervention – from surface sealing to agricultural monocultures to human-made global warming – an oasis is a space of diversity and life.
Oases stand for an alternative way of relating to nature and life on earth in general. They are places for learning and sharing in which people, animals and plants can maintain and develop forms of communal and symbiotic coexistence. They need to exist until there is no more need for them to exist – because we changed our way of being on earth and the world became a garden. They shall be catalysts of this transformation. They are built as places of sparing and will be made obsolete by a practice of sharing. Until then, let’s start creating oases.
Something Fantastic wurde 2010 von Elena Schütz, Julian Schubert und Leonard Streich aus der Überzeugung gegründet, dass Architektur mit Allem zusammenhängt und die daraus resultierende soziale, ökologische und politische Verantwortung zu einer anderen Form der Praxis führen sollte.
Das Oeuvre des un-disziplinär arbeitenden Büros umfasst neben der Konzeption und Gestaltung von Büchern, Ausstellungen, Möbeln, Gebäuden und Städtebau das Forschen und Lehren.
Nach der Lehre am MAS Urban Design an der ETH Zürich leiten die Partner seit 2019 das Studio for Immediate Spaces an der Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. 2020/21 lebten und arbeiteten Something Fantastic in der Villa Massimo in Rom, wo sie mit Erika Mayr das konzeptionelle Gartengestaltungsbüro Lascia Vivere gründeten.
„Mensch Maschine“ ist ein Kooperationsprogramm der JUNGE AKADEMIE der Akademie der Künste, der E.ON Foundation und des Zentrums für Zeitgenössische Kunst Schloss Ujazdowski in Warschau.
