Looking at the world from other's eye

Looking at the world from other's eye

 

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Looking at the world from other's eye

The blind amaze me. The very thought of not being able to see scares me out of my wits. Everything I do revolves around my ability to see. To have sight taken from me would leave me helpless. But most of the blind I know are not helpless, but neither are they without help. They bravely depend on the help of their other senses and they rely on the sighted. We have an awful lot to learn from the blind.

Touch and hearing serve as a blind person’s eyes. I would be stranded in the dark lost and disoriented. With training and experience they are able to weave through obstacles and know where they are and in which direction to go. Then there is the confidence they place in the seeing eye dog that guides them through traffic and keeps them...

Read more: A Lesson From the Blind

Looking at the world from other's eye

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Looking at the world from other's eye

A documentary by Olivier Meyrou, France, 2005



This French documentary discussed the murder of a 29 year old gay man by three skinheads in Rheims, France. It was interesting in that it worked in a distinct way from the way events such as this are normally covered by the press or in other films that portray the events as they happen like the melodramatic Matthew Shepard Story or Prayers For Bobby that intentionally pull on heart strings for a big impact. The more introspective style of the documentary started 780 days after the death of Francois Chenu, and focused on the journey of the parents and the siblings of Francois as they reluctantly let go of their anger towards the perpetrators, and faced them in court to hear their testimony...

Read more: A review of "Beyond Hatred"

Looking at the world from other's eye

Vowels
A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels,
I shall tell, one day, of your mysterious origins:
A, black velvety jacket of brilliant flies
which buzz around cruel smells,
Gulfs of shadow; E, whiteness of vapours and of tents,
lances of proud glaciers, white kings, shivers of cow-parsley;
I, purples, spat blood, smile of beautiful lips
in anger or in the raptures of penitence;
U, waves, divine shudderings of viridian seas,
the peace of pastures dotted with animals, the peace of the furrows
which alchemy prints on broad studious foreheads;
O, sublime Trumpet full of strange piercing sounds,
silences crossed by [Worlds and by Angels]:
–O the Omega! the violet ray of [His] Eyes!
Arthur Rimbaud, 1871

In his poem...

Read more: A Synesthetic Adventure

Looking at the world from other's eye

Of Stones and Ink (De Pierres et d’encre) is not merely a guidebook for Huizhou, a region located in South-West China a few kilometers from Shanghai. The author, a French woman named  Anne Garrigue who has been living in China for five years, offers us an extensive portrait of a place where history and art converge together sublimely.

Illustrated by Zhang Jianping, a local photographer from the region, the account first takes us back to the Zhou dynasty (11th – 8th Century BC) , during which the first commercial activities started in Huizhou. Thus, it is the occasion to recall one of the founding stones of Chinese civilization: the culture of the literati merchants. In order to increase their status in ancient Chinese society...

Read more: A trip into the country of literati merchants

Looking at the world from other's eye

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Looking at the world from other's eye

  

In our modern societies, appearance and beauty is hugely important. Women always think they should be prettier and men worry about baldness. While this is sad, it is not the saddest aspect of the beauty dictatorship. Even animal species are subject to our aesthetic whims and some risk disappearing because they are not attractive enough.

 

If you connect to the WWF or IUCN websites you will see pictures of well known and charismatic animals such as tigers, whales, polar bears and pandas. Of course we all admit they are beautiful and all need our protection, but these animals eclipse other lesser known species. Have you heard about the almiqui or the turkey vulture? They are threatened species too but they have a huge...

Read more: All species are not equal

Looking at the world from other's eye

Five young journalists who work for alternative media share their working experience, their family life, their dogged persistence in the face of challenges, and their hopes for the future. They discuss their career as well as their home lives, describing the process of deliberation they faced over working in the media, including their self-doubt and their self-confidence.

Read more: Alternative Media

Looking at the world from other's eye

In June 2011, Australia’s public multicultural broadcaster - SBS - showed a three-part reality show.  What’s surprising about that, you might ask? Australian audiences routinely lap up reality TV—home renovations, talent contests, cooking competitions, extreme weight loss—the ratings and advertising dollars are almost guaranteed to roll in. Formats change from year to year, but the concept’s popularity remains. Reality TV has been much analysed over the past decade, and while the debate is often framed in terms of ‘love it or hate it’, I suspect that for most people interest lies somewhere in between. Either way, the ‘reality’ of reality TV is not straightforward.

Of Australia’s five free-to-air broadcasters, SBS...

Read more: An alternative reality? Bogans, boat people and broadcasting