"After an action packed day of climbs, falls and river crossings it was time to pull ourselves together, engage our brains and remind ourselves of what it had taken to get us all together under one roof.

Our task was to begin to compile and present the varied material and experiences that we had gathered on our trans-European travels. Before we left our home countries we were given a brief to respond to whilst travelling. Our title of ‘borders’ and how we chose to interpret it was left loose and open, leaving participants the opportunity to respond in such a way that they felt appropriate in order to convey their experiences as they travelled.

Naturally trips from home countries to Kleinwalsertal were as diverse as the participants themselves. Most travelled by train, yet some flew, took the bus or in one extraordinary journey- cycled (from Switzerland!)

So our challenge across two evenings was firstly to gather materials (mostly photos) and as a group collectively decide the most appropriate way to present them cohesively. Our final exhibition banner would be displayed in the town hall at the finale of the meeting, giving local residents the opportunity to learn from our experiences.

The most interesting part of the whole experience was discussing and debating the best way to effectively display such a diverse group of pictures in a way that continued to portray each individuals experience and journey whilst teasing out correlations between experiences, feeling and approaches. After much debate it was decided that the banner should reflect the varied ‘scales’ of people’s experiences. At the larger end of the scale were those who represented their experiences as they travelled from country to country. Others chose to focus on the smaller details of their travels and experiences-architectural details, plants, even plasticine impressions of seat textures!

So eventually all was discussed, debated and analysed until every photo and snippet was firmly stuck down and ready to present. The result was an incredibly vibrant and varied account of 40 different interpretations of our theme- Borders."

Rowan Longhurst, UK