Singapore
Sorrento, Italy
Spanish Steps, Rome
Shanghai
I am the body in the dance as I walk through the city streets. I am finding my way, navigating, using my spatial senses to locate, to weave around people and place - to smell, see, touch, taste and feel the air, the ambience and the atmosphere. I never underestimate the power of a human being to interpret their surroundings. Our senses are fine-tuned, honed from thousands of years of people-sense of place relationship. Cities have been part of this 'knowing' in every civilization. Today is not different - we know how we feel in cities and can use this information to make them work. People are the sensors and the innovators; and the designers.
Navigating Cities, Navigating Self
What can a city teach me about myself? Complexity, hidden spaces, laneways and major arterial roads, traffic, crossings, underground tunnels; even by listing a few of these elements, I am deep in my own psyche, wondering who I am in the city; and who the city is with me navigating my way through its landscape. It is a landscape, a cityscape, a unique sense of place that travellers and locals can impact and engage. I have personally been concerned about cities seemingly forever and a day, even more-so, since a global pandemic was declared in March 2020. I have my favourite cities, of course. I always begin with Rome and probably always will. When I was a young traveller, I knew London like the back of my hand, but I am less familiar with London streets today. It doesn’t matter if it is Rome, Sydney, London or New York; all our modern cities are presenting signs of stress and change.
Traffic is the most prevalent problem, coupled with the movement of goods and services in and out of cities to service the large populations. Air quality is related to traffic in straightforward and in complex ways. Many writers and urban planners write about cities, and design and plan for cities of the future but the main tools and insights come from working with places of the city in relation to places of the Self . We can change our cities; we can change ourselves. I am advocating for this change. Through understanding people and place, architecture and travel, building and construction, weather, climate change and our reciprocity with the earth and the social impact of these activities, we can consciously empower ourselves to create a safer future.
I am available to speak about people and place:
Change the City
Walking paths
Green Cities
Clean air Cities
Art in the City
Public parks
City sidewalks
Play
The Paradox of Isolation
The safe City
Change the Self
On foot relaxation (Know your City by Walking)
Connection to nature
Sustainable Living Choices
We are all artists in our own lives
Reduction of commercial zone
Who am I in a crowd, anonymity?
The child within the City
I want company/I want ‘me’ time
The pandemic and the City.
Enter the dialogue -