【The Never Ending Love Story】

On a bright,The Never Ending Love Story cold February morning in London, I put on shoes that belonged to perfect strangers and went walking.

SEE ALSO: The artists behind the striking Obama portraits

No, I am not some kind of shoe-obsessed kleptomaniac. This was a visit to the Empathy Museum -- an experiential art project that has been running since 2015. It first sprung up in Vauxhall, London and has travelled all over the world since then; to Australia, Brazil and Ireland to name a few.

The exhibit, called A Mile in My Shoes, takes the form of a gigantic shoebox -- which was plonked in the middle of a car park when I went to visit. Inside you are given a stranger's pair of shoes to wear, along with an MP3 player and some headphones. The owner of the shoes tells their story for about fifteen minutes -- the rough amount of time it takes for most people to walk a mile.

Don't worry, they keep the shoes nice and clean. They even have bowling alley spray.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

I listened to two stories. The first was Sarah, a nurse and polio victim who came to Scotland from Mauritius and now lives in Hackney, east London. The second was Bilal, a middle weight boxing champion who has represented England six times. He came to the country when he was a teenager, and was recently threatened with deportation and held in a detention centre.

View this post on Instagram

The Empathy Museum currently has twenty-seven pairs (sizes four to 11) for people to try on, but over the course of the Museum's existence it has collated over 200.

You can listen to some of the Empathy Museum's previous storytellers on Soundcloud, but it really doesn't compare to the sensation of literally being in the shoes. The stories feel so much more intimate, and the emotions they evoke are infectious. Walking for only a short while you might feel any number of emotions, ranging from deep burning shame, to boiling anger, or soaring joy.

The importance of stories

We were lucky enough to talk to one of the storytellers who donated his shoes to the project. Originally from Nigeria, Peter Atakpo came to Britain in 2010 and works as a barber in Clapham, south-west London. He was contacted by the Empathy Museum after collaborating on a play called Barber Shop Chronicles.

Peter was enthusiastic about the project before he even knew what it was. "When I just saw the title -- a project by the Empathy Museum--I was like, I don't even care what it is. I'm in."

"Doing barbering has really taught me to empathise with people," he told us. "Because I meet a lot of people, and you can't really relate to them until you kind of put yourself in their shoes."

View this post on Instagram

Peter gave us an example of an encounter in his barber shop that woke him up to the importance of empathy. A client of his who uses a wheelchair came in but Peter was running a little late, so the client said he would come back in 45 minutes. When he returned for his haircut Peter asked where he had gone, and the answer came: to find a toilet.

Mashable Trend Report Decode what’s viral, what’s next, and what it all means. Sign up for Mashable’s weekly Trend Report newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

"That's when it dawned on me," Peter said, "these are just things we take for granted, simple things. Something as simple as going out to ease yourself, this brother had to travel all the way to wherever, because he is disabled. It's going to be a mission for him, just to ease himself and come back again."

"When you hear these kind of stories," he said, "then you tend to empathise. So the next time he came I didn't even care if I had twenty people or whatever -- as soon as he comes, whether he has an appointment or not, he's getting straight in the chair."

Empathy and Migration

For this particular incarnation of A Mile in My Shoesthe Empathy Museum partnered up with the Migration Museum Project. All of the stories and shoes available belong to people who migrated to Britain at one point or another.

"It seems that it's quite a big topic for discussion, especially in the light of Brexit," Patey told us about the thematic choice. "Partly the Empathy Museum is a response to the fact that we surround ourselves with people that are very similar to us. Both in our work circles and online, and our social circles, our worlds are tiny."

"We wanted to gather together a really diverse set of voices so that we could begin to have some of the public conversations in public space around migration," Patey said. "I think the danger is that we end up in a very polarised society where we run to our corners when any conflict is raised, and we descend into a world of very quick insults and vitriol."

For her, listening is the key. "Listening is something we don't do very well," she said, "it's difficult to empathise unless you've really connected through listening."

Practical applications of empathy

Few people have the opportunity to listen to very many personal stories in a day, but A Mile in My Shoesis a way of manufacturing that experience, and reflecting on its effects. Patey is fascinated by "practical applications" of empathy, and cites very concrete examples of empathy's role in society.

"How are you going to design a tin opener for an ageing population if you don't know what it's like to try to open a tin with arthritic hands, for instance?"

"I think people are naturally empathetic."

For Patey empathy falls in the remit of an old cliché -- practice makes perfect. "It is now proven through neuroscientific research that empathy is something we can learn to do much like riding a bicycle," she told us, "and that your neural pathways begin to reconfigure in order to re-wire your empathetic brain."

The Empathy Museum isn't the only place to adopt a policy of actively teaching empathy. The programme Roots of Empathyaims to promote empathy and reduce bullying in schools, sometimes by bringing babies into the classroom.

For Peter however, empathy is something innate.

"I think people are naturally empathetic," he told us, "those who are not, actually learned not to be."

The Empathy Museum doesn't give any definitive answer to big philosophical questions about morality, but it does make you question things you thought were so concrete in a truly valuable way. It is possibly the best, the most practical way of cracking open the echo chamber, even for just fifteen minutes.

A Mile in My Shoes is at the Migration Museum until February 25, and their newsletter will let you know where to expect them next. The Migration Museum Project's current exhibition No Turning Back: Seven Migration Moments that Changed Britain is also well worth a visit.

---

Featured Video For You

---

Patrisse Cullors says she's not a fan of 'woke'

---

Topics Activism Social Good