Featured in New York Times

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The Kelly Clarkson Show

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Poets & Writers

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NBC Nightly News

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Secret NYC

Featured in New York Times ︳ The Kelly Clarkson Show ︳ Poets & Writers ︳ NBC Nightly News ︳ Secret NYC

Sofia Kavlin

Creative strategist, writer, and experiential creative director. Creator of Unsent Letter Mailbox. From NYC to the world.

I help brands and organizations turn human insight into ideas people want to be part of: IRL activations, analog rituals, and storytelling campaigns that live across platforms. Trained in anthropology and behavior design, I start every project by asking what people believe and how we can move them.

Clients include Glossier, Anthropic, Figma, Free People, and Gracie Abrams. Work featured in The New York Times, NBC Nightly News, The Kelly Clarkson Show, Poets & Writers Magazine, and Secret NYC.

What I do

I design participatory experiences across mediums that audiences can take part in.

A 2-minute tour of the memory palace — seven rooms, one story. Each room is a phase of the work.

THE FLOOR PLAN

00

The front door

where we begin
THE VISITOR · a brand, an institution, a cultural space

We have a story and a set of goals to go along with it... but how do I bring this story to life in a way that our audience can interact with?

SOFIA · your guide

Stories and architecture have a lot in common. There are underlying beliefs and values, there's a demography, there are sets of rules for what you can or cannot do. We'll start with who our ideal guest is... and end with a floor plan they will navigate.

A memory palace is an old trick: you remember a story by walking through it, room by room. I build participatory rituals around a single story, then carry it across installations, events, editorial, products and community.

Walk with the arrows, swipe, or tap a room on the floor plan.Swipe left to walk to the next room →

01

The library

data-informed & ethnographic research
THE VISITOR

Ah! Our ideal guest. Well, we know our audience on paper, and we know what we want the story to do: reach a new audience, strengthen loyalty with the one we have, change how people see us.

SOFIA

That's our starting point. Let's dig a little deeper and meet your people where they are. What are their intersecting interests? Which Reddit forums do they read? What do you mean to them?

My background is in quantitative data analysis and ethnography (the study of people in their own habitat), so I read the numbers closely, then do the fieldwork.

Your audience isn't a number. They're participants in a culture, and the ones shaping it.

SEE IT IN ACTIONHumanizing Data, with the Van Alen Institute →
02

The study

concept design
THE VISITOR

Wow, I never knew our audience was into Naruto AND romantasy. Now... how do we build something they can step inside?

SOFIA

That's what this desk is for. We start by drawing up our house rules: how you get in, what you're allowed to do, what gets rewarded.

The research becomes a first activation proposal. I draw on game design (stories that spill off the screen into real life) and behaviour design (the study of why people actually do things), in which I'm certified through Irrational Labs. Then I bring in visual artists for renders and one cohesive visual identity.

SEE IT IN ACTIONThe WNDRLND scavenger hunt →
03

The main gallery

installations, IRL experiences & activation design
THE VISITOR

Nice! So where does this all live? And how do we get people to actually DO something, not just stand along the wall holding a drink, nodding their heads at a rager?

SOFIA

The possibilities are endless! Different mediums (websites, digital maps, urban installations) will change the way people engage with your story. Wherever it lives, we plan the room around them: where they come in, where they pause, what they touch, who they talk to. Nobody ACTUALLY wants to be the head-nodder. Often, they just need a nudge to know where to start.

From first concept to on-site execution: interactive public installations and narrative-driven IRL (in real life) experiences that turn audiences into active contributors.

Analog rituals, participatory art, and a meaningful disruption of public space.

LEFT ON THE TABLEconcept decks · scripts · spatial layouts · facilitation guides
SEE IT IN ACTIONThe Unsent Letter Mailbox ↗
04

The hall of mirrors

multi-platform storytelling
THE VISITOR

This is rad. I love seeing our story play out in space. But once the activation or campaign is over, does anyone outside the room ever see it?

SOFIA

Yah! What people experience in the space we create becomes the picture they take, the post they share with friends... and the post becomes the story a journalist wants to cover. Nobody's fake smiling through veneers. It's real canines, baby.

I shape what participants make and share (user-generated content) into long- and short-form stories, then carry them further through social media, web design and earned media (press you don't pay for). My own projects have been covered by The New York Times, NBC Nightly News and The Kelly Clarkson Show.

SEE IT IN ACTIONThe Mailbox's post office ↗
05

The dining room

community-driven storytelling
THE VISITOR

I worry that people will come, have a blast and then disappear into the ether, never to be seen again.

SOFIA

I get that. I also have abandonment issues :/ But people come back if they feel like they have a real stake in what they leave behind. That might be a friend they made, a personal note or artifact they contributed, a community forum they are now a part of.

The long table is where a crowd becomes a community. I build storytelling frameworks that run from digital UX (user experience design, like interactive maps and unsent letter portals) to temporary installations and in-person storytelling nights.

LEFT ON THE TABLEprompt systems · participation mechanics · archival frameworks
SEE IT IN ACTIONLoose & Undiagnosed (coming soon)
06

The attic

emotional insights & data
THE VISITOR

Our board members are asking whether it worked. What should I say?

SOFIA

We circle back to our first conversation. What were the goals you laid out for the campaign or activation? Those are the main stats we will report back on to quantify success and keep your board happy :)

Alongside your numbers, I track the emotional data: the patterns and themes in what people write, say and leave behind. From DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) work to marketing to petition-signing, it's how you measure emotional impact.

LEFT ON THE TABLEthematic reports · language maps · engagement analysis
SEE IT IN ACTIONThe Humanizing Data findings →
07

The tea room

where the tour ends, and the work begins
THE VISITOR

Huh. I never knew a story could contain so many possibilities. Very much like this tiny blue and wet dot, spinning around outer space, that we call home.

SOFIA

Oh yeah, it can get existential real quick. Let's sit down, the kettle's on. I'll keep it simple every step of the way and we'll build the first room together.

For brands, institutions and cultural spaces that want experiences that feel real, and moments of reflection people carry long after they leave the room. Let's talk.

Project Gallery

Collage of various travel-themed images and text, including a cartoon fish, a map, a snake, and phrases in Spanish and English about journey and identity.

WNDRLND (2023) is a co-designed alternate reality scavenger hunt based on the Lower East Side's Puerto Rican heritage. It uses a collaborative map (QGIS and Felt) as an interface to mediate between players' movements and the community garden network of “Loisada“.

Collage featuring the Flatiron Building, a leafless tree, birds flying, a person walking a tightrope, colorful plants, blue flowers, water, and abstract patterns.

The Unlearning Project (2021 - present) is a collection of poems and essays centering on the exploration of “Old Beliefs” and "Reframes”. Drawing inspiration from Henri Bergson’s notion of “infraordinary,“ the purpose of this narrative change sequence is to render the ordinary strange again.

Public storytelling activation with poetic prompts on a round table, featuring handwritten reflections from participants during an outdoor team-building experience.

TimeTable (2023) is a temporary urban installation using plywood and oak. Timetables say something specific about our cultural attitudes towards time — the contraction of time and space for production purposes. It evokes the mechanization of society during the industrial revolution. This wonky timetable plays into the idea that time is first and foremost, an experience - and, therefore, subject to variations depending on context and quality of attention.

Immersive storytelling activation in a forest with live cello music, communal seating, and ambient lighting — designed as a placemaking retreat for corporate teams

Slow matter.s was a pop-up performance series taking place from June to September 2023 in New York City. We curated Lo-Tek events in public spaces and salons where, through spoken word and live music, we invited participants to turn their phones off and tap into their own creative space. To disengage and reengage.

Cartography of Self (2024) explores culture’s influence on body image and individual aspiration. It is typewritten and rendered in watercolor and bricolage and draws from a five-month-long movement study with Mary Abrams in New York.

Interactive letter-writing placemaking installation with branded signage and analog storytelling exchange. Participant engages with poetry prompt in a custom-built outdoor mailbox activation designed to foster vulnerability and connection.

The Unsent Letter Mailbox (2024) is a public installation series and anonymous reading series coined a movement by Secret NYC, where passersby write unsent letters and, in exchange, read one written by someone else. The project has since grown into a fiscally-sponsored multi-disciplinary group that provides creative engagement through free pop-ups, ticketed events, collaborations with visual and performance artists, and partnerships with institutions and companies.

Urban storytelling portrait as part of a poetic placemaking activation. Staged in a liminal industrial space, the image reflects themes of self-expression, emotional safety, and curated voice — key to narrative therapy and identity work.

“Horizons” (2023) centers on the frailty and joy of the human body against the concrete backdrop of New York City. This piece captures the right to privacy and contemplation through unscripted movement (to dance as if no one were there).

Cityscape transformed through poetic overlays and public storytelling — participatory placemaking through layered handwritten reflections. Ideal for creative corporate activations that reimagine space and voice.

Humanizing Data (2023) is a five part workshop series developed for the Van Alen Institute exploring the relationship between the body and the built environment through three steps: first, by attending to direct sensory experience; second, by identifying the narratives that inform spatial design; and lastly, by observing how we subsequently move through it.