Bed in, 2015

Inspired by Yoko Ono and John Lennon, Hannah Cooke and Seraphine Meya invited the public to join them in an enormous canopy bed in Karlsruhe’s Kaiserpassage in early June 2015, using this collective and international bed-in to call for a slow down in the pace of modern life. The result was a platform, uncoupled from daily routine, where discussions of climate change and desirable alternative ways of living could be held, and where dance, yoga, and a cake performance reinforced the sense of community and produced a tangible feeling of togetherness. The bed created a sense of closeness and the feeling that together, change is achievable. Its effect was to banish the fear that is driving force in a society under the banner of neoliberalism.
Presentations by art researchers, artists, and designers provided momentum for further debate. After getting the group in the mood for a day in bed with a few John Lennon songs, Katharina Breier and Louisa Zander of the Junges Staatstheater Karlsruhe discussed refugees and migration. They also reported on Stop Hate – Kiss Now, an autonomous group of theater actors who have been making waves at anti-Pegida demonstrations in Karlsruhe with their creative protests against racism. After an intense discussion of human rights and the importance of being able to live with dignity, Gabriele Lang and Marco Zampella led the group in a free-form dance session. Participants moved to music on the soft landscape of the bed, their motions gradually coalescing into a collectivemovement. For passersby strolling through the shopping arcade, the scene in this shop window was thoroughly disconcerting, a source of perplexity in the consumerist routine of an otherwise ordinary Monday. After a yoga interlude led by Seraphine Meya, Sebastian Baden gave a talk on “grassroots globalization,” taking listeners back to the origins of the bed-in and reading passages from a history of the German student movement of the late 1960s. Juxtaposing the resistance of 1968 with the bed-in of 2015 clearly outlined the charged social field in which the politically active individual moves today. The concept of grassroots revolution underscores the importance of the many small gestures involved in creating a just and meaningful life together. As a safe and friendly place, the bed-in offered the ideal base for planning resistance. In Moritz Thinnes’s performance, the resistance members shared pieces of cake. A worthwhile future begins with the little things, and thus with every one of us. Eva Wetzler explained how important it is in this context to understand our own powers of selfhealing. In a brief workshop, she instructed participants in Essential Healing, a self-healing technique involving active relaxation.
Next, Jonas Baumhauer presented his plans for a design firm where art, design, and science will work hand in hand to shape the future. He views design not as the creation of new products, but as a critical intervention in the existing situation. Thomas Maier gave a brief introduction to the meaning and possibility of utopian micronations, and then a colorful mix of people and generations enjoyed the rest of the day in bed, painting their hopes for the future on the sheet as a contribution to the WorldWideBlanket project and discussing the day’s events to the accompaniment of piano music by Flora Jörns.