This is an experiment.

One of my favourite Gestalt therapy concepts- experiment- essentially involves trying something out for yourself and noticing how you experience what happens as you do so; what new awareness, if any, emerges for you.

I love the apparent simplicity, and, pun definitely intended, potentiality for artistry it provides.

In order to create an experiment we can start with two ingredients:

1. Purpose

What are we curious to observe with this experiment?

By addressing this question we are, gently and firmly, focusing our attention, not to ignore the rest of existence, that inevitably affects and is affected by what we are observing, but to intentionally give space to that which we are curious about.

1. Frame

What are the conditions of this experiment?

Think of them as the frame of an artwork, or rules of a football match; these are the conditions we lay out before we engage in the experiment. They help us maintain the focus as we go along.

In my experience of therapy practice, these two are co-created between clients and therapists, and even this initial process can include stumbling upon awareness jewels. Since this is not an in-therapy experiment, the co-creation has been a bit different, but it still exists. As I am currently aware of, my co-participants in weaving of this project (albeit without their explicit knowledge  ) are: Audre Lorde, Simone de Beauvoir, Gloria Anzaldúa, Octavia Butler, Ivo Andrić and Adrienne Maree Brown. And also: numerous interactions with friends, colleagues and teachers.

This experiment’s purpose

I am curious to observe how I embody moving between *choosing* and *passively enduring* as I visit museums/galleries with my toddler and a Museumkaart.

Some choices I have made in shaping this experiment’s purpose:

· I see value and importance of both *choosing* and *passively enduring* in different contexts. For the purpose of this project, I am curious how it is for me to move between them in a situation where, theoretically, I do not have to passively endure.

· With becoming a mother, my history of growing up in war torn country (Serbia/ ex-Yugoslavia) and current atrocities we are witnessing and participating in (more or less directly) globally, the movement between these two poles seems important to me. My experience tells me I naturally lean towards enduring: of suffering, hardship, misery. As I wrote above, this is not itself a bad thing. There are contexts, where passive endurance is the only way to survive; further, in a situation where choice is available, choosing to endure, is different from passively enduring. Finally, and in my own case, channelling this trait born out of suffering into my role of a therapist is a kind of cool spin off. Here, I am curious about being stuck in what bell hooks calls “habits of being”: how I embody falling into the lull of passive endurance when the situation allows for different choices.

· Situating this experiment in museums/galleries as to me they represent, albeit imperfectly, modern version of agora (ἀγορά): “gathering place” in ancient Greek cities, which served as a marketplace, political centre, and social hub. I see a serious lack of shared spaces and detrimental consequences of this for folks today. With Museumkaart in particular, a (relatively) accessible and fixed fee ensures I won’t be paying extra to access these spaces.

· Writing- as a form of communicating this experiment’s reflections- has long been a creative act that helps shape me. I enjoy sweating through the words, especially as I am struggling to name something that is on the edges of my awareness.

· Both visiting museums and writing have been rituals of cultivating joy, or rather joys, pre motherhood. I wrote joys, as they have been vast and varied, including the joy of (contained, held) struggle, of being challenged, as well as of belonging and being seen, and many more. Since becoming a mother, many old rituals have shifted, including these ones. By choosing to return to them with this experiment, with my child, I am not seeking a return to that pre-motherhood experience; rather, I am knocking on familiar doors, in a new form, openly, vulnerably and seeing what happens.

· I am writing this publicly as a therapist, not to demonstrate some knowing of a way of being, but to share, through my own experience, how it can look like to engage in a long(er) term experiment, as it unfolds, in a hurting world we share.

· I am doing this acknowledging my privilege to engage in (for me) exciting, unpaid work, to experiment without fearing for my life from missiles and to do so with my toddler, as a choice, not necessity.

This experiment’s frame

· Commitment

I am committing to visit a museum/gallery with a Museumkaart and my toddler + write about these experiences once a month on Substack and share on Instagram, from November ’26 until June ’26. This intro essay is written in October ’25 and the Conclusions one will be published in July ’26. This will make 10 articles in total.

· Not another “must” to passively endure

Should this project, and my commitment to it, become more burdensome than life-affirming, I will exercise my freedom to adjust with it (skipping a month or so, terminating it or shifting in a different way). Crucially, given the topic of this experiment, that would be an important finding to become curious about and reflect on.

· Confidentiality

I am a therapist and a mother engaging in this public experiment; it goes without saying, but perhaps precisely because it can be assumed, I want to make the following explicit: my clients’ and my child’s confidentiality are integral to this project. Nevertheless, whatever I experience and then write in here will inevitably be shaped by contacts with my clients and relationship with my child.

So- indeed- this is an experiment.

Follow along if you feel invited.