Posted 6 Apr
Claudia von der Borch 
Did you know that your body is a home to more than just you? You have billions of microscopic organisms living in you. These friendly bacteria call you home, building an entire ecosystem inside you, and are a very important part of keeping both you and your body happy. It’s known as your microbiome and, despite being a very important factor in our mental and physical health, we still don’t know all that much about it.
In HEDONISM, we created the world of Symbiosville so that you could explore your microbiome. You got to create a character and then make choices for them, which allowed you to see the effects of lifestyle on the diverse community of bacteria in your gut.
From our observations the average time spent in Symbiosville was 9 minutes, but the longest time recorded was 37 minutes! Within this time, 95% of visitors engaged with the screens exploring Symbiosville.
We asked what your favourite part of this exhibit was and you were divided 50/50. Half of visitors enjoyed our highly photogenic Science on a Sphere, fair enough. The other half of you enjoyed creating your character, exploring the locations, and learning facts about how eating bacon or patting a dog affected the gut.
After playing Symbiosville, visitors shared what they had picked up:
‘[Be] mindful of your decisions. Knowledge is power’
‘Different things in your life can impact your gut flora’
‘That eating and taking care of yourself is important’
Compared to other exhibits, Symbiosville scored highly in motivating visitors to find out more about the science behind gut bacteria.