Around the world, raging wars and brutal regimes have forced more than 21 million people to leave everything they know and love behind in their home countries. We haven’t witnessed so many refugees run for their lives since the Second World War. Every one of them is looking for a place to start their lives again, without danger or fear. When talking about the problem of refugees, we use dehumanized language, which reduces human tragedy to numbers and statistics. Before LIVE event, in Berlin, using an experiment by Artur Aron who discovered that four minute eye contact brings people closer together than anything else, we seated refugees and Europeans opposite each other, so they would look in each other’s eyes for 4 minutes to overcome mutual prejudice.

24 hours before, our live campaign was promoted by a teaser video with footage from the Look Beyond Borders film to build intrigue in 15 countries. The experiment took place in a live setting, and the locals didn’t know that they are about to meet refugees – meaning that the online audience will see their emotional reactions. Communication started with live broadcast on Facebook Live from four cities in the world: Sydney, Nairobi, London, and Mexico City. The participants were to look each in the eyes for four minutes. It was inspired by an experiment that proved that 4-minute eye contact gets people closer to each other more than anything else. The experiment, broadcast live, was attended by people from Australia, Kenya, Great Britain, and Mexico as well as refugees from such countries as Ethiopia, Democratic Republic, Afghanistan or Syria.