The Experience Project

or experienceproject.com

This website is singularly devoted to the anonymous sharing of experiences. It provides an interactive online community for people to post their own feelings, thoughts, stories, and challenges for each other. The founder of the site, Armen Bjerkely, originally created the site as a resource for multiple sclerosis patients, inspired by his friend's diagnosis. Since then, the site as grown massively to incorporate 3,442,520 personal experiences (it's true-- the site has a counter!) divided into over 24 categories, which include Food, Sports, Relationships, Health, Pets, Food, Activism and many others. The site gives people the opportunity to anonymously make confessions (like PostSecret), challenge themselves to quit smoking or exercise more, share information about their health struggles, or just express their enthusiasm about cats.

The "about" section of the site has some bullet-pointed items that effectively sum up the principles of the site better than I can:

• Everyone has experiences to share.
• People are a product of all of their experiences.
• The more experiences we share with one another, the deeper the understanding between us.
• Everyone faces situations where talking with people who "just get it" can be incredibly powerful.

I strongly agree with all of these statements. In fact, these bullet points very effectively support what I have sought in my own approach to my art thesis. I think it is of vital importance for people to share the wisdom of their experiences, and also for others benefit from them by trying to relate more deeply. Talking to someone who "gets it" is indeed incredibly powerful, and I think the participatory aspect of this site makes it much easier to achieve. I hope that I will succeed myself in this respect.