Main content

Worlds in Miniature

Brigid Kendall and guests writer Jeff Nunokawa, street installation artist Slinkachu and clinical geneticist Usha discuss why tiny things appeal to us.

In an ever-expanding world, why do so many of us favour the brevity of a tweet or Facebook post and find scaled down miniature models magical and appealing? Jeff Nunokawa is a literature professor who loves long 19th century novels but reaches out to his students in bite sized posts. Slinkachu is an artist whose miniature figurines could be hidden in a street nearby, waiting for you to stoop down and enter their tiny world. Plus, a salutatory reminder that small is not always better from clinical geneticist Usha Kini who has pioneered research into microcephaly, a medical condition where disrupted growth means smaller than normal heads and brains. Photo: Balancing Act (credit: Slinkachu).

Available now

28 minutes

Last on

Sat 10 Oct 2015 11:00

Jeff Nunokawa

Jeff Nunokawa teaches at Princeton University where he specializes in English Literature from about 1830 till about 1900. Jeff’s most recent book is Note Book, which is a published selection of mini essays that he’s been posting every day in the notes section of Facebook since 2007.

His first book, The Afterlife of Property, studies how the novels of Dickens and Eliot labour to preserve the idea of secure possession by overseeing its transfer from the sphere of a cold and uncertain economy to a happier realm of romance. Tame Passions of Wilde: Styles of Manageable of Desire excavates the aspiration to imagine a form of desire as intense as those that compel us, but as light as the daydream or thought experiment safely under our control. 

Slinkachu

Slinkachu’s 'Little People Project' involves the re-modelling and painting of miniature model train set characters, which he then places, photographs and leaves on the street. It is both a street art installation project and a photography project. The street-based side of his work plays with the notion of surprise and aims to encourage city-dwellers to be more aware of their surroundings. The scenes he sets up aim to reflect the loneliness and melancholy of living in a big city, almost being lost and overwhelmed. But underneath this, there is always some humour. 

Usha Kini

Consultant Clinical Geneticist Dr Usha Kini is the Clinical Head of the Oxford Brain abnormalities research group. She also holds the position of Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Oxford. She graduated in medicine from Bangalore University, India and then trained as a Paediatrician in the UK before completing her training in genetics at Manchester. She has a special interest in children with birth defects, particularly structural brain abnormalities.

Broadcast

  • Sat 10 Oct 2015 11:00