Mateja Meded

Country: Yugoslavia

Biography

Mateja Meded is a self-proclaimed ghettolectuall artist—a writer, director, and actress working across theatre, film, and contemporary art spaces. As a child, she fled her home country and was raised in exile, on concrete, between languages and worlds. Her work is often described as radical, bold, honest, fresh, and fiercely funny. Whether on stage, on screen, or in the gallery, she approaches art as a form of high-performance sport—driven by survival instinct, poetic rage, and Balkan joy. Meded’s practice challenges dominant narratives and is rooted in a feminist, intersectional, and deeply personal aesthetic. She is a central force behind a growing artistic movement that reclaims power through humour, rawness, and storytelling from the margins.

Born in Yugoslavia, she has lived in Germany since 1992 and is an actress, author, director and filmmaker. During her studies at the Babelsberg Film University, she already worked at the Maxim Gorki Theatre in Berlin. There she was a member of the ensemble that developed and wrote the theatre play Common Ground, which won several awards. In 2018, she was nominated as best actress at the Socially Relevant Film Festival New York. In 2021, she was part of the digital theatre at Theater Neumarkt in Zurich with her Shitfluencers. The results were short theatre films that Mateja Meded wrote, directed and edited. In the same year, her video installation was shown in a group exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Mateja Meded is currently working on the film trilogy Hack the system. She writes regularly as a journalist, gives lectures on flight, art, politics and migration and presents small performances in art institutions. 2024 sees the release of the cinema film Der Soldat Monika, in which she can be seen alongside Maria Hofstätter and Philipp Hochmair.

Cuntslime Power Against Predatory Kaputtalismus

Cuntslimepower Against Predatory Capitalism is a spell, a solo dramedy, and an empowerment movement for all the underdogs, outsiders, and punks. In fast-paced, witty, and sharply funny episodes, it tackles themes like poverty, hypocrisy, pseudo-activism, elitism, violence against women, and what it means to be a former refugee.

Between reality and me, there is barbed wire everywhere.

An alien talks about itself, where it comes from, and why it is here now. It talks about precarious biographies and shattered spines, about illegally cleaning other people’s houses with its mother, grandmother, and aunt. It is the beginning of a galactic liberation strike: traditional clichés about fleeing and arriving are shattered, and immense energy is released for « Yugofuturism. » « Enthralled, one listened to the torrent of words, which at the premiere flowed gently at times and at others cut like a razor through the Kosmos Theater, making the 70-minute solo performance fly by, » writes Patricia Kornfeld on nachtkritik.de about the tragicomic monologue.

Duration: approx. 70 min.

Note: This production contains descriptions of war, flight, and experiences of violence.

Text, concept, direction, performance: Mateja Meded

Voiceover: Mika Amsterdam, Anna Laner

Dramaturgy: Anna Laner

Lighting design: Dulci Jan

Sound: Karl Börner.