There is a moment at the end of every long piece of research.
The data is in. The chapters are written. The defence is over, and the project has closed its doors.
And someone, usually late in the evening, asks the question.
Where do we go now?
Researchers ask it. So do curators after an exhibition opens, analysts after a report is sent, and program officers after the last event.
The honest answer is that the work was never meant to end there.
Culture, memory, history and belonging are things people make together. That is why we call these fields the social sciences: they can only be understood by people thinking together. Someone has to ask what you meant, disagree, and say that is not how it looked from where they stood.
That is what I am building here.
I study cultural exchange and dialogue. I have worked in museums, cultural organizations and policy research, and I developed a framework, Cultural Mediation, to study how culture helps people understand one another.
These two plants come from the places I come from, and I carry them with me. Ideas, like plants, grow from the cultures that hold them. I hope you find something of your own roots in them.
So I share my work in series. The first is Melos: big ideas about culture in short, plain-language articles, each with a companion podcast and a question to talk about. Next, I am planning a weekly conversation, Coffee, Tea & Conversation, where people who see things differently can make room for one another.
I do not pretend to know where research goes next. Nobody does alone. That is the point.
Where do we go now? Let’s talk about it, over coffee or tea.
- PhD, Cultural StudiesQueen’s University
- MA, Museum and Gallery PracticeUniversity College London
- MA, Art HistoryUniversity of Toronto
- BS, Foreign Service: Culture and PoliticsGeorgetown University