Follow a stranger: an unusual way to explore cities and see the world through someone else’s eyes

Two days after I arrive in Belgrade, I’m being shown the outskirts of the city by a man in pink trousers. I think he must be a local: he knows exactly where he is going, striding confidently down narrow alleys and across wide roads, showing me parts of the Serbian capital far from the beaten track.

Sometimes I have to break into a little run to keep up. But I don’t get too close, because he does not know he is acting as my guide to the parts of Belgrade that are off the tourist route – and the last thing I want is for him to find out he is being followed.

“Follow a stranger” is one of the instructions I’ve been given by Serbian artist Milos Tomic, in what is billed as an alternative tour of the city, and I really enjoy it, while also feeling as if I’m doing something a little bit wrong.

I tell myself I am not stalking the man in the pink trousers – I don’t know his name or anything about him, and when he leaves the public space of the street to enter a private block of flats, I abandon him and find my own way back to the central Republic Square.

My assignment from Tomic is, of course, not intended to upset anyone. Rather, what I am doing is a one-off exercise and, as British artist and writer Phil Smith puts it, is handing over control of exploring the city to someone else, chosen at random.

Smith regularly gives this task to students of theatre and performance at the University of Plymouth, seeing it as a valuable exercise. “The idea is that you’re exploring the space but someone else dictates it to you – it neutralises your will,” he says. “The intention – or hope – is that the followed person will lead you into places you haven’t been before.”