Declan, Suining
"The trip led us a merry chase around the oldest part of our city, which is only to say that the street plan of that area has not changed perhaps for centuries. Rarely do we stumble on a building even in the oldest part of town over fifty years old – such is the nature of Chinese society. We saw many things that made us joyful, such as small groups of Chinese people enjoying themselves. Personally however after eleven thirty I was uncomfortable to be on the street. We had a post tour drink in a bar we stumbled across, the first time I visited a bar in China! Despite the name bar though, it was a unique Chinese experience which saw us sitting with the other patrons and toasting them."
"In a spin-off event, one of the guys we met there invited us to visit what turned out to be his magnificient home the following day and have dinner with his family and friends. This proved to be the most memorable aspect of undertaking the tour. In endeavouring to create some art we ran into that man who was having a drink with his art teacher, and had I never gone out on a tour of this kind, we never would have hooked up."
Kevin, Minneapolis
"Initial skepticism on my part gave way to pure enjoyment as we were forced to interact with the city in a controlled fashion. It was interesting to come across so many intriguing people and situations that would have remained otherwise hidden from our lives had we received a different instruction that led us down another street. I frequently give up on this city and proclaim that there is no good stuff in it, but I am usually proven wrong and this project confirmed that. Simply kicking back and waiting for a city to come knocking on your door with a list of fun activities is not going to happen. Seems to be a two way process."
"We picked Central avenue in northeast Minneapolis as a good starting point. It's a higher end of the low income bracket blue collar type of neighborhood. There are freight trains running through the area, beautiful old warehouse buildings, a strong Russian and eastern European presence, plenty of hardware shops. It feels like a real community, the type of existence where you could go next door to borrow a shovel, be offered a cold beer and then spend hours talking about nothing in particular. And what's wrong with that? Absolutely nothing. It's got that very, very tiny hint of danger but overall is just full of normal people doing normal and abnormal stuff."
Margarida, London
"I really enjoyed it... thanks for including me. I ended up seeing so much that... it just made me think about a lot of things."
Paula, Galway
"I found my walk to be enjoyable, but had a few difficulties with it also. I began at the Town Hall thinking, this is a nice part of town, trees, architecture, waterways etc. Then I was immediately directed away from all of the above! I found this frustrating to begin with - having to go down roads where I would usually not venture. I was unable to fully allow my navagation to be controlled by someones elses decision/direction. I did however, warm to the walk about ten-fifteen minutes in, when I began to experience new unfamiliar aspects of Galway visually, rather than wanting to take nice photos of beautiful familiar places. I can identify when I began to warm to the walk. It was a turning point to the walk. I began to see potential everywhere. People, dogs, colours, textures."
"The highlight of my walk? Well there is only one answer to that. When I, by chance bumped into you on my walk! I have never bumped into you anywhere by coincidence or without having planned to meet up before - and I have thought about this a lot in the past. It is weird that we have not crossed paths by chance before, since we live in such a small city. But on Saturday, while on this very consciously contrstucted path controlled by your random instructions, you brought me to you! Nice."
I asked each participant to follow the audio instructions given and record their journey however they wished. They then returned their recordings to me, along with their thoughts on the experience. Aspects of each individual's personality, and their relationship with their city, can be seen in the results.