10 Minuten geführte Meditation für Gutbetuchte Menschen/10 Minute Guided Meditation for Wealthy Individuals
2021
11:10 audio work
with special thanks to Hannah Santana
Originally developed for and broadcast live at the May 1, 2021 MyGruni demo, an annual Mayday bike demonstration through Berlin’s wealthiest neighbourhood organized by Quartiersmanagement Grunewald. Further broadcasts on 02/05/2021 on Ra:dio, THF Radio Berlin, on 15/05/2021 on HALLO: Radiospiele Edition 3, HALLO: Festspiele Hamburg.
This guided meditation interrupts the reassuring self talk of the capitalist class with the increasingly insistent sounds of class struggle outside their villas. Much of the text was taken directly from the YouTube comments posted by wealthy Grunewald residents on the videos of previous MyGruni actions. The protest tracks were recorded on 15/04/2021, at a major demonstration in Berlin the day the Mietendeckel (rent cap) was overturned by German courts. The lifting of the rent cap, put in place to mediate skyrocketing rental prices in the city, meant immediately increased rents for many Berliners in the middle of the pandemic, and that landlords must receive back payments to make up their two years of ‘lost earnings.’
*The closed captioning and visuals for this audio work were created with accessibility in mind for deaf and hard of hearing folks.
Image: May 1 bike demonstration through the Grunewald neighbourhood. Photo via Bizim Kiez.