Mareike Wenzel is an actress and a performance artist from Berlin/Germany. She graduated from Birmingham School of Acting with a BA (hons) in acting. For the past six years she has been working as an actress for the performance company SIGNA. Their performances have been invited to Berliner Theatertreffen, Schauspiel Köln, Salzburger Festspiele, Volksbühne Berlin and others. Since 2012, she has also been collaborating with the women's rights organisation TERRE DES FEMMES for which she devised a performance against trafficking of women which toured throughout Germany.

 

In 2011, she founded the interdisciplinary performance project Salon Tbilisi Berlin, which is an exchange project between female writers from Georgia and Germany. The Salon Tbilisi Berlin took place twice a year in Tbilisi and Berlin. The frame for the project was the Georgian tradition of the supra -  traditional Georgian feast/banquette with the tamada - toastmaster. In Salon Tbilisi Berlin five to seven women from Berlin and Tbilisi took over the part of the tamada and were writing texts on the topics of the Georgian toasts. These texts were then translated into the other language and presented during a supra in Tbilisi and Berlin. During these performances there was German and Georgian food cooked by the writers and the audience was invited to sit and eat together with them, as well as to listen the texts and also actively take part. During all performances the stories of the audience were also collected and were included in the final performance.

 

The final performance took place in summer 2014. All participating writers came together, reviewed their work, selected texts and based on all collected material deviced an interactive performance which was then going to be presented in both cities. The project also included a publication documenting the project, including photos taken by photographer Jann Wilken.