Photographic conscience

After Richard M. Nixon saw Nick Ut’s wrenching image of the 9-year-old Kim Phuc, he said,

“I’m wondering if that was fixed.”*

Trump, who frequently invokes claims of fake news and lies even though there are easily available transcripts, photographs and video to refute his claims, isn’t suggesting that forthcoming images of suffering migrants will be manufactured or fake though he will likely make that claim, too. At the moment, Trump is doing something more ominous. He is perverting the logic of the photographic conscience. No longer do we see an image of terrible suffering and say, never again. Rather, we imagine the dreadful details of terrible suffering, and then steel ourselves to look away.
Diverting Focus: Trump is already numbing us to the horrific images his plans would create, by Philip Kennicott. Washington Post, July 4, 2024. (Diverting Focus is the headline in the print edition.)
* When Nixon said he wondered if Nik Ut's photo was "fixed" he was wondering if it was fake. (Nixon was famously paranoid as well as being a criminal and an unbelievable a**hole.)
“Nothing I have seen — in photographs or in real life — ever cut me as sharply, deeply, instantaneously. When I looked at these images, something broke. Some limit had been reached.”
Susan Sontag, on her reaction to seeing images from the Nazi atrocities in Europe, from her seminal 1977 book On Photography. Via Diverting Focus: Trump is already numbing us to the horrific images his plans would create, by Philip Kennicott. Washington Post, July 4, 2024. (Diverting Focus is the headline in the print edition.)
Kennicott reflects on the power of documentary photography to act as a kind of “photographic concience” in society and Trump's efforts to desensitize us to its effects.

Fiction and democracy

Moral panics over fiction are common in democracies, because the inner lives and motives of others matter a great deal in a democracy, arguably more so than in other political systems where people have less direct control over their social experience — and less freedom of expression. In a democracy, your fellow citizens can organize for social progress or encourage the passage of draconian laws that terrorize minorities. Fear of other people, and how they might work together to shift reality, is the reason the contest over written language so often extends to the realm of make-believe — of fiction. Fiction is the story of other people; this is what makes it dangerous.
Book Bans Are on the Rise. But Fear of Fiction Is Nothing New. By Lyta Gold. The New York Times, July 1, 2024

Leaving Mumbai

After 4 years on the project and a year as Director I’ve packed my bags and said goodbye, for now, to my fabulous friends, colleagues and community at the Museum of Solutions (MuSo), Mumbai. Thank you! I am overwhelmed by your kindness and generosity and I’ve learned more from you than you’ll ever know!

It was a privilege to help nurture this new museum and its library (LiSo, the Library of Solutions) from concept to reality; to help build and lead the founding team; and to welcome tens of thousands of visitors to our new state-of-the-art building — “a world-class space to champion the art of finding solutions,” as a reviewer at Condé Nast Traveler recently put it — unique in Mumbai and India, if not the world.

Four years ago Tanvi Jindal, MuSo’s founder, asked if I would help her think about a new “museum of solutions” she was envisioning for the site of an old industrial building in the middle of Mumbai.

How could we create a new kind of museum in one of the world’s largest and most challenging cities to catalyze action for the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, foster new approaches to education, and help young people make meaningful change in the world together?

…And could we also make it fun?

Though Mumbai and India were new to me, this question of museums, play, and civic impact was not. Through years of work with the Smithsonian Institution, the U.N., and other cultural and civil-society conveners around the world I’ve been part of a decades-long movement to *flip the script* on traditional museum practice and help people use their own cultural institutions as platforms for the public good.

And this moment demands nothing less.

With a population of 22 million, Mumbai is indicative of the world’s 40+ megacities (cities with over 10 million inhabitants). Along with megacities like Shanghai, Jakarta, Paris, and L.A., Mumbai is home to daunting social and environmental problems — as well as astonishing creativity and drive. But the problems and the vitality often seem to live in different worlds.

Mumbai is India’s financial capital but over half of its residents live in slums. It is India’s innovation and creative hub (Bollywood! The city of dreams!) but many of its neighborhoods will be underwater by midcentury, drowned by rising seas due to climate change. Education is highly valued, but it is predominantly structured around rote memorization and test achievement, not the world as we see it today.

Young people are often caught in the middle of this dynamic, squeezed between a daily fight for survival, antiquated educational and social systems, and their own profound abilities to see and create a future filled with beautiful change.

Furthermore, young people — all people — have a fundamental human right to be involved in the decisions that will affect their futures, but too few conveners will help them find their way.

If we can learn to solve problems in places like Mumbai we stand a good chance of surviving and thriving in the 21st century. Museums like MuSo can be a kind of civic infrastructure in this regard. By being bold, inclusive, and action-oriented — rooted in reality but also participatory and fun — we can bring people together to build social capital and elevate everyone’s ability to imagine and build a future that is joyous, sustainable, and just.

What’s next for me? I don’t know — I’m still catching up on sleep and processing what I’ve learned! But with any luck, I’ll keep working in this direction: young people and their grownups in vital civic spaces, enthralled by the chance to play and explore together — making life better one small solution at a time.

//

This text is a slightly expanded version of this post on LinkedIn.

Setting up the Library of Solutions, Mumbai. November 2023. CC-BY

“Public libraries are of and for the people. Fundamentally democratic, they usually do not ask visitors to justify their presence or pay an entry fee. Fewer and fewer such nondiscriminatory and noncommercial spaces exist in our towns and cities today.”
The Strange Magic of Libraries, by Stuart Kells. The Paris Review, April 9, 2018
We have been working with amazing young people here in Hawai'i. [...] The young people today, they are determined. They understand what's happening to their planet, and they are committed to advocating for a better future for them and generations to come.
Julia Olson, as quoted in Young climate activists just won a ‘historic’ settlement by Victoria Bisset, Washington Post. June 28, 2024. I've ligtly edited/shortened Olson's quote.
Olson is the co-executive director and chief legal counsel of Our Children's Trust, which has been representing young people in lawsuits claiming that government inaction (or worse) has violated young people's right to a clean environment. The article outlines a “historic” settlement between youth activists and the state of Hawai'i that requires the state to “cut its transportation sector’s planet-warming pollution and to consult with young people about its climate impact.”
Audrey drew up a list of things that every child should be able to do by age sixteen and stuck it on the wall. It read, in part:
  • Clean a fish and dress a chicken
  • Write a business letter
  • Splice or put a fixture on an electric cord
  • Operate a sewing machine and mend your own clothes
  • Handle a boat safely and competently
  • Save someone fron drowning using available equipment
  • Read at a tenth grade level
  • Listen to an adult talk with interest and empathy
  • Dance with any age
The list changed with the times, adding computers and contraception, and nobody really kept score, but everybody got the idea.
The Long Ride: The surf legend Jock Suthrerland's unlikely life, by William Finnegan. The New Yorker, June 10, 2024. Audrey is Jock Sutherland's mother. She raised her children — all “water babies” — on the coast of Oahu, Hawai'i in the 1950s and 60s.

MuSo in Condé Nast ‘7 best museums in Mumbai’

Opened in late 2023, Museum of Solutions (MuSo) is a unique, experiential children’s museum that’s designed as a world-class space to champion the art of finding solutions.
Condé Nast Traveler, The 7 Best Museums in Mumbai. 17 June 2024.
I'm usually a little cynical about these kinds of designations but the outside validation will be helpful for our young brand and I think the writer, Prachi Joshi, really nailed it with that first line about ‘a world-class space to champion the art of finding solutions’.

By no means sufficient…

Imagine eight brilliant critical thinkers sitting around a table to consider means to improve the town's water supply. None of those brilliant minds can get started until someone puts forward a proposal. […] But where does the proposal come from? Who has been trained to put forward the proposal?

Critical thinking is a very important part of thinking, but it is by no means sufficient. What I so strongly object to is the notion that it is enough to train critical minds.
Edward de Bono, Six Thinking Hats, Chapter 25.

The moral test of a society

It is time to put a surgeon general's warning on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents. […]

Last fall, I gathered with students to talk about mental health and loneliness. As often happens in such gatherings, they raised the issue of social media.

After they talked about what they liked about social media — a way to stay in touch with old friends, find communities of shared interests and express themselves creatively — a young woman named Tina raised her hand. “I just don’t feel good when I use social media,” she said softly, a hint of embarrassment in her voice. One by one, they spoke about their experiences with social media: the endless comparison with other people that shredded their self-esteem, the feeling of being addicted and unable to set limits and the difficulty having real conversations on platforms that too often fostered outrage and bullying. There was a sadness in their voices, as if they knew what was happening to them but felt powerless to change it. […]

The moral test of any society is how well it protect its children. Students like Tina and mothers like Lori do not want to be told that change takes time, that the issue is too complicated or that the status quo is too hard to alter.

One of the most important lessons I learned in medical school was that in an emergency you don't have the luxury to wait for perfect information. You assess the available facts, you use your best judgment, and you act quickly.

Surgeon General: Why I'm Calling for a Warning Label on Social Media Platforms, by Vivek H. Murthy, the surgeon general of the United States. New York Times, 17 June 2024

Cruinniú na nÓg — Anthem for Ireland's Free Day of Creativity for Young People

Screen grabs from The Spark: https://youtu.be/njE3EknkkBY, produced for Ireland’s National Free Day of Creativity for Young People.

The song is an anthem for Cruinniú na nÓg (Gathering of Youth), which will hold hundreds of free creative events for children and teenagers across Ireland. The initiative started in 2018 and will this year be held on 15 June.
‘We got the energy’: Irish children’s rap video goes viral, by Rory Carroll. The Guardian, 20 May 2024. Video: The Spark, produced by Kabin Studio Crew & Lisdoonvarna Crew for Ireland's Free Day of Creativity for Young People, 2024.

LYRICS
Think you can stop what we do, I doubt it (Doubt it!)
We got the energy, we'll tell you all about it (Bout it!)
I searched for my spark and I found it (Found it!)
Everybody in the crowd start bouncing

Verse 1
Making bangers at a young age (Bangers!)
My pen setting fire to the page (Fire!)
I will show you how to rock that stage
Listen to this in the car you'll be getting road rage (🚗)

Listen up ‘cos what we do everyday is daycent (Daycent!)
Kabin Crew won’t stop on top of every playlist (Boom!)
If we see a dream you know we’re gonna chase it (Yeah!)
So get over any fear you have just face it (Go on kid!)

That’s my passion and I couldn't live without it (No!)
You can do it like we do it, don't doubt it (Go!)
Any obstacle we find a way around it
If you're proud of who you are and what you do, shout it!

Chorus
Think u can stop what we do i doubt it (Doubt it)
We got the energy we’ll tell ya all about it (Bout it)
I searched for my spark and i found it (Found it)
Everybody in the crowd start bouncin

Verse 2
Grooving through my town, people be like who are they? (Who?)
Moving to my music yeah that gets me through the day (woo!)
I create my own way feeling super slay (Slay)
Express my art that’s how i communicate
In my imagination, never feeling out of place (No!)
Blast off like a rocket up to outer space (Zoom!)
Living large reaching for the stars
Let them all know us kids are in charge! (That’s right!)
Feeling awesome anytime I rap (When I rap!)
Thoughts blossom when I'm on a track
Spittin bars top class full of energy no cap (No cap!)
Cruinniú na nÓg Rhyme Islands on the map (map!)

“My friends and I might still be 11, and we might still be in elementary school, but we know.”
11-year-old Naomi Wadler, as quoted in Students lead huge rallies for gun control across the U.S. by Michael E. Shear. New York Times, 24 March 2018. Her complete statement was, “People have said that I am too young to have these thoughts on my own. People have said that I am a tool of some nameless adult. It’s not true. My friends and I might still be 11, and we might still be in elementary school, but we know.”