nothin Strangers Make Eye Contact On The Green | New Haven Independent

Strangers Make Eye Contact On The Green

Chris Randall / I Love New Haven Photo

Wilson and Krushnic go eye-to-eye.

Sname Wilson sat across from Sasha Krushnic on the New Haven Green, and they stared into each other’s eyes until an iPhone buzzed 60 seconds later.

You don’t see that happen every day on the Green, despite the crowds of people there.

It happened by design, punctuated by a timer.

It was really intense at first,” Wilson said.

The interaction between Wilson and Krushnic was one of several dozen sessions of uninterrupted eye contact between pairs of strangers on the New Haven Green Saturday afternoon. Sara-Joy Liebig of New Haven organized New Haven’s iteration of the World’s Biggest Eye Contact Experiment 2016 with the stated aim of strengthening the city’s sense of community.

The social experiment, developed by a European activist group called The Liberators International, took place in over 160 cities. It was the second annual experiment around the world, the first such event in New Haven. Its concept is simple: Two people who have never met before sit and stare at each other, and just this act is meant to build trust.

New Haven is a great place to do something like this because we’re so diverse, but we’re pocketed,” Liebig said. Hopefully we can break some of those divides.”

Wilson and Krushnic were the first pair to experiment. She is a behavioral therapist and he teaches with Partner Acrobatics — they do not know each other. They removed their shoes and sat across from each other on a pink blanket spread on the grass. They held hands loosely and maintained silent eye contact for one minute.

After they broke away from each other, both laughed. Then they tried again.

It’s that feeling when you’re looking into someone’s eyes, and it dilates,” Krushnic said. It feels like you’re looking through the eyes into something broader.”

Wilson, who heard about the event through Facebook, said she came because she believes such an experiment is especially relevant in New Haven, which has a large homeless population.

People walk through the Green every day but rarely take the time to look around, she said.

Liebig said she chose the Green because she intended for members of the homeless population to participate in the eye contact experiment. This kind of event will attract the same kind of person — a meditator, for instance — so Liebig shared the Facebook event with various religious and cultural groups in the city to encourage diversity.

One homeless individual participated on Saturday. Liebig said she hopes for even more participation in future years.

Chris Randall / I Love New Haven Photo

Madeline Horrigan.

As the event went on, participants started to personalize the experiment. For some, it was easier to make eye contact after a brief introduction. For others, maintaining a conversation throughout was even easier.

In one case in Brazil, a pair held eye contact for nearly 20 minutes and then began a relationship afterward, Liebig said.

There’s no expectation. There are no rules,” said Yasmin Ramadan, a New Haven resident. “‘It’s deeper than just looking at someone’s eyes.”

About an hour after their initial interaction, Wilson and Krushnic had been through several eye contact sessions with various partners. Both of them stopped using one-minute timers, holding eye contact for five or even ten minutes at a time.

It gets easier, Wilson said.

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