Turning curiosity into knowledge through data.

Questioning our perception

For Graphic Days® Torino, we applied data gamification to Barriera di Milano, commonly known as Barriera, the neighbourhood in Turin hosting the festival.

A place shaped by different cultures and ongoing transformations, but also by perceptions and stereotypes around topics such as migration and safety.

Barriera Mentale explores the distance between the neighbourhood we imagine and the one revealed by data.

Discovering Barriera through questions

How many nationalities live in Barriera? What is the most represented age group? How has the neighbourhood changed over time?

Through a series of questions based on local data, visitors explore Barriera starting from their own assumptions.

Each answer becomes a position, a personal reading of the neighbourhood before discovering what the data says.

Complete the challenge and get a small reward.

Measuring the gap

Only after answering are the real figures revealed.

The experience measures the distance between each participant’s perception and the actual data, turning that gap into a new way of discovering Barriera.

Data is no longer just information to read, but something to question, compare and relate to.

A collective perception

Every anonymous answer becomes a new data point.

Together, participants create a collective portrait of Barriera: where perception and reality overlap, where they diverge, and which assumptions we share.

The neighbourhood is described twice: by the data about it, and by the way people perceive it.

Beyond Barriera

Barriera Mentale starts from one neighbourhood, but the same approach can travel across different places.

We see data gamification as a way to explore neighbourhoods and cities through the distance between what we think we know and what data can reveal.

A way to discover a place while questioning our own perception of it.