BRUSSELS — A team of artists in Belgium aims to teach men how it feels to be a woman subjected to harassment in the street, through an immersive project which plunges visitors into a darkened tunnel full of leering holograms.

The installation, called Masculine Poetry, is preparing to open to the public later this year. A preview in a hangar in Brussels has attracted the attention of lawmakers, campaigners and those working with victims of harassment and abuse.

“It was hell. But also, there are no surprises. It feels like what we’re used to,” said Louise Van Brande, a social worker who attended the project on Friday.

The installation’s walls are lined with images of men who make comments at passing visitors, activated through sensors in the walls. The cacophony ends with a female voice shouting “I am your mum, I am your sister, I am your girlfriend.”

“I feel like I’ve just lived through a week, months of harassment in the street walking in the shoes of a woman who’s constantly being watched,” said Jonathan Vard, another social worker.

Artists Nathalie Erin, Frederic Durieu, and Gilles de Boncourt are behind the project. Erin and Durieu, who are married, said it was inspired by their daughter’s experiences growing up in France.

“We made this project for men, and we realized that it had an enormous impact on women too,” Mr. Durieu said, adding that it had prompted some female attendees to talk to their partners about past experiences for the first time.

Priscillia Vercaigne, a policewoman who works with victims of domestic violence in Comines-Warneton, a Belgian city on the French border, she said she hoped to bring the project to her town.

“There’s lots of work to be done,” she said. — Reuters

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