Are you feeling burnt out and grim? Salty, desolate, and overwhelmed? How many unread emails are in your inbox? 

Turn on, tune in and drop out to Keenan MacWilliam’s Salmon Skin Hypnosis, a completely serious and satirical guided meditation. Take a deep breath, exit the frenetically turbulent stream of the internet, and start swimming inward.

“But who is Salmon-Skin?” is the question on everybody’s lips. Salmon-Skin is a spiritual guru, elusive performance artist, philosopher-pop star and suspected cult leader. She is the main character of a fantasy multiverse from the mind of Keenan MacWilliam, who says that she “can't really explain Salmon-Skin’s name, she just came to me exactly how she is. She felt slippery and elemental, warm and offbeat.” One thing is certain: Salmon-Skin has been around, and is here to stay. 

Salmon Skin Hypnosis is a call to action (well, some have called it propaganda, but we digress) released by Salmon-Skin in the early years of her art career. She invites us to slow down and access a nonhierarchical, collective plane of existence. Perhaps the secret to Salmon’s long rise and enduring success in the industry lies in the power of meditation. Could letting go of a desire be the way to achieve it? Could you hypnotize curators, art collectors and gallerists into a relaxation so blissful that they buy all your art? 

Find inspiration in a grain of sand, a sesame seed, or a loved one’s eyes, while immersing yourself in a soothing aquatic soundscape akin to the one you were born out of. Hypnosis features ethereal mixed media shot by Keenan MacWilliam, animations by Matea Friend, and sound design by Joel Harrower. 

If you’re so tense that you need more than one meditation to loosen up, there are more immersive Salmon Skin Meditations that you can listen to here. These sonic experiences are the result of an ongoing collaboration between MacWilliam and Joel In Blue, begun in 2020. They use an exquisite corpse process: MacWilliam improvises spoken words and Joel shapes sounds around them. A companion mockumentary, At Home with Salmon Skin, starring SK Lyons, premiered at Company Gallery and is currently being expanded.

Salmon Skin Hypnosis is a portal, a sanctuary––and it’s only the beginning.