← back to journal

Shona Neary / Sketchy ShonaBerlin · artist-led tourism4 September 2026

Sketchy Shona on GetYourGuide

An artist testing what happens when their own practice becomes a live, bookable way to experience Berlin.

A public-practice note about Shona Neary / Sketchy Shona, founder of Countercult.

This is not a tourism side project

GetYourGuide currently lists Sketchy Shona as a Berlin activity provider under the legal company name Shona Neary. The profile connects two active public products to the same artistic practice: a two-hour underground art workshop and local street-artist tour, and a three-hour private atelier oil-painting or plein-air masterclass.

The useful story is not that Shona “also gives tours.” It is that an artist informed by AI tools, working across product and systems architecture, creative technology, creative direction, and cultural strategy, is testing the whole experience on themselves. They are the artist, guide, teacher, host, supplier, product designer, and feedback loop.

2hunderground art workshop and street-artist local tour
3hprivate atelier oil-painting or plein-air masterclass
5.0public rating shown for the underground art experience when this page was sourced

Live urban storytelling is part of the practice

The public GetYourGuide supplier profile makes the connection directly:

“Sho integrates years of professional tour guiding experience directly into their art practice.”

Quoted from the public Sketchy Shona supplier profile on GetYourGuide, accessed 4 September 2026.

That combination matters. A tour is not being pasted onto the art as a sales format. Guiding, storytelling, public art, studio practice, local context, and meeting people are being designed as one encounter.

Test the idea on yourself first

Shona’s wider practice has the same experimental logic. Countercult is not only a concept deck. It is a live cultural infrastructure project built through a public network, editorial work, funding experiments, artist exchange, software, events, and physical spaces.

“I’ve always loved tech.”

Shona Neary in the Shona-authored Countercult Substack post “NYC, Japan, and our thoughts on AI as creatives”, published 15 June 2026.

The GetYourGuide listings extend that approach into a marketplace Shona can observe from the inside. They can test how a cultural product is titled, found, booked, hosted, reviewed, and improved without treating an artist as a decorative layer added at the end.

What this proves for Countercult Studios

This is useful evidence for destinations, hospitality groups, cities, agencies, and institutions. Countercult Studios can think across the full system: cultural research, product and systems architecture, artist relationships, creative direction, experience design, production, distribution, and the real human encounter.

It is also evidence of a method. Before advising a place on artist-led visitor experiences, Shona is testing what it means to build and deliver one personally.

Building a visitor experience with local culture at its center?
Work with Countercult Studios on cultural research, artist-led experience design, creative direction, production, and place strategy.

work with Studios on place → see the live listings ↗

Public sources

  1. Sketchy Shona supplier profile on GetYourGuide, including provider description and public activity list.
  2. Berlin: Underground Art Workshop & Street Artist Local Tour, public listing.
  3. Berlin: Private Atelier Oil Painting / Plein Air Masterclass, public listing.
  4. NYC, Japan, and our thoughts on AI as creatives, Shona-authored Countercult Substack post.
  5. Sketchy Shona artist biography, public practice background.

countercult updates

Stay close to the work.

Get Countercult notes from Shona Neary by email: independent culture, creative direction, and the work behind the platform.

Countercult was founded and built by Shona Neary. Their separate artist practice is Sketchy Shona.

This piece was informed by Shona Neary’s writing, conversations, and thinking around independent culture, artists, and place.

editorial process: Our Journals are pulled from our writings over the years to get information out as quickly and as widely as possible, and to get to what matters: finding each other and claiming our seat in the circular economy. Some ideas overlap between Shona Neary's work on cultural infrastructure and their artist practice as Sketchy Shona. AI is a tool for infrastructure, not for creating Journal writing or artists' work. We welcome original reporting and pitches from journalists and independent publishers.