Marcela Villanueva Curator & Cultural Manager

index / work /

SIESTA / Ruhezeit

Transnational research-based installation + Berlin public programme

Period2025
RoleCurator for the Berlin iteration; local co-production through Karne Kunst/Bardo
LocationMontevideo, Buenos Aires, Berlin
ContextOriginal work by Mara Borchardt and Mariano Ravenna; Berlin co-production by Ravenna/Borchardt + Karne Kunst at Bardo
CommunityWorkers, unions, artists, cultural workers and Berlin public
CategoriesCuratorial Practice Programme Design Community Engagement
Themesrest · labour · construction workers · productivity · care · labour rights · city
Linkkarnekunst.com/ruhezeit-art-exhibition ↗

A transnational curatorial project developed from SIESTA, an installation by Ravenna/Borchardt (Mariano Ravenna and Mara Borchardt) documenting moments of rest among construction workers. After presentations in Montevideo and Buenos Aires, Marcela Villanueva curated its Berlin chapter as Ruhezeit at Bardo Projektraum, expanding the work into a site-specific exhibition and public programme around labour, exhaustion, care and the politics of rest. At its centre, the Siestario transformed the visual language of a construction site into a temporary refuge for pausing, listening and collective reflection. Through local collaborations, mediation and conversations around workers’ rights, gender and queer participation in the construction sector, the Berlin edition reframed rest as both a social right and a political gesture within cities organised around productivity

A darkened room lined with black tarpaulin where visitors rest on mattresses beneath a projected film of construction workers.
fig. 01The Siestario at Bardo Projektraum, Berlin, 2025
A light-filled room where visitors lie on a low mattress and floor cushions facing a projection, with photographs strung across the windows.
fig. 02Installation view — rest platform, cushions and projections
Black and white photograph: a person reclines on a beanbag indoors while, through the window, a worker sits resting among stacked cement sacks on a building site.
fig. 03Rest inside the exhibition, rest on the building site beyond the glass
The lit shopfront of Bardo Projektraum at night with the Ruhezeit exhibition poster in the window as a woman and child walk past.
fig. 04Ruhezeit at Bardo Projektraum, Berlin, November 2025