“How can I encourage the inhabitants of a given place to (re)discover their own area and gather information in order to portray a more personal and authentic view of that place?”
This is the research question I developed during my Master which also led to my approach to the fields of Mapping, Psychogeography and Visual Documentation.
The first part of my Major Project Output is the (Re)Discover Package which aim is to encourage the inhabitants of a certain area to go out, explore their surrounding world and have fun while experiencing it.
In order to test my package I decided to challenged three friends of mine living in three different European cities (Berlin, Lisbon and London). For that, I sent to each one of them one (Re)Discover package. Inside I placed the necessary tools to complete the challenge: one disposable camera, one pen, one coin and one book with the instructions.
In a few weeks my friends sent me back the results and some comments on the experience which were very positive.
Afterwards I decided I could not just leave all of that information to oblivion so I developed the (ReDiscover) Books.
These books created from the users experience represent the second part of my Master's Final Output and serve two purposes. One is to allow the person who undertook the journey an opportunity to (re)live the experience. The second purpose is to leave an open door and allow the user to share the experience of their journey in a visual manner.
The books are divided into two distinct sections. The first is called "Through the Lens" and it represents an open door for imagination so the reader can take he's own conclusions on the experience. The second is called "Through Words" for those who want to discover my friends story and perhaps to be encouraged to try something similar.