Sophie Bower

I was invited to design a series of mediated tours to accompany the Liverpool Biennial International exhibition.

I wanted to try to capture as much as possible the 'unrelated' thoughts that people had within the gallery spaces. I did this by asking people to try to notice their thoughts and share them honestly before we moved on to the next room in the gallery.

I kept a note of shared thoughts and documented them in the form of a gallery floor plan.

Some of the feedback:

'I think it was like most things, as you get to know people better you become more open. So at first some aren’t as willing to say what they were really thinking or whether they should even say it, in case it isn’t relevant or “wrong”. But towards the end you couldn’t shut people up because people were maybe more relaxed or happy to share their opinions and thoughts etc.'

'I didn't expect such an interesting dialogue and really enjoyed hearing the other seemingly brainless things other people shared as well. It was nice rediscovering tangents and both the banality and insightful thoughts that everyone has along the way.'

'There was a sense of closeness to the other participants that I hadn’t expected.'

'Occasionally when people shared their thoughts I found that I had thought/felt almost exactly the same things but hadn’t registered those thoughts/feelings because they were only articulated in the moment that another person spoke them.'