Hannah Rumstedt is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, director, and performer whose work blends film, theatre, and visual art. Her practice explores the relationship between body and space, questions of ownership, and the evolving idea of community.
She co-founded the NIE Kollektiv in 2018, developing hybrid theatre formats such as live cinema and site-specific performances in unconventional spaces — from abandoned cinemas to glass pavilions. She writes, directs, and creates visual concepts, working with live video and experimental stage design.
Her films and performances have been shown at festivals, and she collaborates with collectives like Zona Dynamics and Fortuna Wetten. In 2025, she will launch a curatorial project in a repurposed public toilet.
Her alter ego, “Frau Regel,” appears in various art contexts, addressing real estate, absurdity, and the aesthetics of failure through performance and augmented reality.
Extended Bio
Hannah Rumstedt is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, director, and performer. Her exploration of intimacy and the evolving concept of community through the lens of space began in 2011, when she first squatted the “AZ Köln.” At that time, she participated in the street performance Utopia Kalk with the youth theatre group Rheinische Rebellen 2.0 at SCHAUSPIEL KÖLN, which investigated the grammar of the city’s neighborhoods.
Her first experience in theatre was as an actress in the play Von Engeln und Insekten, followed by performances in Deine Fassade beginnt zu bröckeln, Im Haus der langen Schatten — for which she wrote her first monologue — and Fluch der Hoffnung, which was invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen der Jugend at the Berliner Festspiele in 2012.
Raised in Cologne by parents from East Berlin, she produced a documentary on the post-reunification generation in Prenzlauer Berg — 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall — before beginning her studies in Visual Communication at the University of the Arts (UdK) Berlin. Her academic and artistic inquiries focus on the relationship between body and space, questions of ownership and property, and the search for a humorous approach to themes like self-determination, isolation, and community.
Her documentaries and short films have been shown at various festivals. As a performer, she develops interdisciplinary work within collectives such as Zona Dynamics and in temporary collaborations with several artists working in generative art.
In 2017, she returned to theatre. Her first feature-length documentary accompanied the occupation of the Volksbühne at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz and the urban-political events that followed. From this, the NIE Kollektiv emerged, founded in a basement in Neukölln in 2018, producing nine theatre pieces. Drawing from her film background, she developed a new form of live cinema within NIE, where audiences experience the stage action via a screen. Across thirteen productions, she created the live camera and/or managed video technology.
Her stage designs span diverse locations: performances in public space, a glass pavilion in an old bakery with video projections on a billboard, the former Schinkel Bauakademie, the abandoned L’Aglion cinema, the Volksbühne Pavilion, and an old caravan on the street. The stage becomes a starting point for content development, blending visual storytelling from film with her postdramatic theatrical language.
Within the NIE collective, she has also written and directed seven theatre works in collaboration with performers from Berlin’s independent scene, including: Gesetz Nr. 10, Mark Macht Theater, Wir Sind Nicht Nett (Parts 1 + 2), Der Falsche Film, and her latest production, Schneller als die Sonne, which focuses not on visual elements but on auditory experience.
With the relocation of the NIE collective to Haus der Statistik in 2019, she co-founded the Bühnen im Haus der Statistik e.V. alongside other independent theatre makers. During the interim use of the site by the “Pioneers,” she served on the jury for the urban design competition Temporary Open Space Design at Haus der Statistik / Haus des Reisens, contributed to the development of the new cultural venue Allesandersplatz, and acted as a representative of the Pioneers within Koop5.
In addition to her camera work on Peer Gynt (a production by Lars Eidinger and John Bock), Hannah also worked as a guest assistant director for Clara Weyde and, from 2023–2025, as a video technician at Berlin’s Schaubühne.
Since 2024, she has had access to a former public toilet house, granted by the municipal parks and streets department, which she is transforming into a cultural venue. In 2025, she will launch a curatorial experiment there, focusing on site-specific and free space design, in collaboration with various artists, including the collective Fortuna Wetten.
Her visual art operates at the intersection of performance and new media. As early as 2019, she developed an augmented reality work dealing with knowledge transfer through extended realities. Around this time, she also created the alter ego “Frau Regel,” a real estate agent who appears in various art contexts, including panke.gallery, studio db, Zuostant, Sternschuppen, and Galerie Ebensberger.
Together with Caroline Beach, Sini Falte, and Markus Stein, Hannah collaborates loosely associated exploring the ineffable: the mysteries of beauty, failure, and error.