BUTTERFLIES
IN YOUR PATH
How can the "in-betweens" of life become portals for serendipitous human connection?
Bucharest, 2022
Role: Experience Design
DESCRIPTIONButterflies In Your Path is a walking-based human connection experience created by Isabella Nardini, exclusively for the Unfinished Festival 2022 in Bucharest, Romania.
Held between September 29 and October 2, 2022, this intervention transformed an ordinary urban transition into a ritual of unexpected encounter and reflection.
As part of the festival, participants needed to walk approximately 26 minutes between two main venues: from Bulandra Theater to the Romanian Radio Hall.
Rather than treating this transition as idle time, Butterflies In Your Path invited people to turn the walk into an intentional journey of connection.
Before leaving the venue, participants received two "connection-cards":
One card displayed half of a visual symbol — a clue to finding their walking partner.
The second card contained an intimate question about life paths, crossings, or transformation.
Participants were encouraged to search for the person holding the other half of their symbol and walk together toward the next venue, using the question as a guide for dialogue.
Upon arrival, they used the second card to record their "butterfly moment" — any sensation, thought, or realization that blossomed during the walk.
EXPERIENCE DYNAMICSCONCEPTUAL PILLARSWalking as a ritual for expanding emotional landscapes.
Chance encounters as artistic and transformative mediums.
The power of urban movement to foster intimacy between strangers.
ESSENCEThrough the simple yet profound acts of walking, looking, and speaking, participants from diverse cultural, racial, and generational backgrounds discovered that — even amidst differences — we remain potent mirrors for one another.
