About this Event
Surprise City Tour
The Walking Festival of Sound invite the Surprise Association to offer a tour of Zurich from the perspective of Hans Peter Meier.
On the tour you will learn how urban planning and socio-economic development have changed public spaces and the way people affected by poverty are treated in Zurich. But you will also hear who drew attention to the problem of homelessness in the 1960s and what measures church and city representatives took to respond.
The tour takes you to inconspicuous places. These are visited by peopleon the edge of society, for example due to addiction and poverty.
At the end of the tour you will find out how the club's offerings enable numerous people to cope with everyday life under difficult conditions.
Hanes Peter Meier
Hans Peter Meier (born 1958) has been at Bellevue since January 2009, selling Surprise. He installed software standards internationally, trained IT staff and led a jet-set life. During this time, his alcohol consumption also began to rise steadily. In his last job, he looked after software that banks use to trade on the stock exchange. In 2000, the New Economy bubble burst, and restructuring followed. Meier lost his job in 2003. He took on a lot of odd jobs until these jobs also dried up. Drinking became a problem. During this time, he was at home in many of the "Social City Tour" institutions. Today, he is a recovering alcoholic and only lives from selling magazines and, since October 2014, from the Social City Tours. His motto: "It can happen to anyone. You can live with dignity even with little money."
The Walking Festival of Sound
Walking Festival of Sound is a transdisciplinary event exploring the role of walking through and listening to our everyday surroundings. It combines a number of free and public events including walking performances, walking seminars and listening sessions, all taking place in diverse public spaces and online. Walking Festival of Sound facilitates a meeting point for the international network of practitioners and researchers interested in sound and walking. Through diverse events we explore how walking and listening practices can augment and challenge the way we perceive, navigate through, and care for our shared environments. In 2019 the festival took place in two cities, Stockholm, Sweden and Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. In April 2021, the festival moved to Krakow, Poland and Edinburgh, Scotland. In 2022, the festival visited Seoul, Korea and Vancouver, Canada. Zurich, Switzerland, is the festival's site in 2024.
The festival was founded and is directed by Jacek Smolicki and Tim Shaw.
This year's festival is supported by the Collegium Helveticum.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Militär-/Langstrasse, Militär-/Langstrasse, Zürich, Switzerland
GBP 0.00