Note: This article was first published by, and for, Social Entrepreneurship Forum: http://www.seforum.sg.
You enter fearless, with seven others, confident that darkness alone poses little threat and challenge. As you venture deeper into the exhibition, with only a white cane and a gentle voice guiding you to “come towards my voice”, new thoughts surface: Is this what it truly feels like to be blind? Can I truly experience the world without sight?
Note: This article was first published by, and for, Social Entrepreneurship Forum: http://www.seforum.sg.
Think of “Food” and “Asia” and what comes to mind is a rich and diverse mosaic of landscapes and sentiments: on the one hand, we can imagine golden fields of rice tended by tight-knit communities, abundant harvests at year-end festivals, and sprawling, animated markets; however, we also have unsavory images of grain rotting in the heat, poverty-stricken and hungry children, and food riots in urban centers.
For anyone interested in cities or urban studies, know this: the ‘city’ you have in your head, the one you think you’re living, breathing, existing in, is different from that in my mind, or anyone else talking to you, telling you about what they think a city is capable of, and what it does from day to day. This includes academics – not least esteemed urban sociologists and policy researchers from Goldsmiths and Harvard. We’re living in the same, different place.
