Noumenon (in Kantian philosophy): a thing as it is in itself, as distinct from a thing as it is knowable by the senses through phenomenal attributes. The outward fact is called the Phenomenon, and the corresponding inward principle is called the Noumenon.
Noumenon: Knowledge Warriers is a tryptic about women and the quest for knowledge. In the three consecutive panels, Pakistani school girls exit their school gate while Malala Yousafzai confronts the forces of tradition that would hold them back. As a beautiful woman in hijab watches, the courageous Malala Yousafzai stands courageously in front of the wall of the Karakorum Mountain range. This is the first Noumenon in the image -- the implacable granite between Pakistani women and their quest to improve the intellectual lives of others. The hills are a metaphor for the deeply embedded cultural forces she is engaged with in her home country on behalf of women.
Malala delivers a message through the microphone powered by the mythical goddess, Durga (Hindu mountain-goddess, war-goddess). Otherwise called Shakti (power), Durga generates all forms of knowledge of the world. Noumenon #2: the fundamental capacity for human self-agency. Representing the dark episode of her shooting, an ominous black bird scrapes past Malala. Flowing with the flock across the implacable mountain range, the ominous brush with darkness becomes auspicious omens of Black Ibis, reaching out to women in abstract black strokes across those vast foothills of Balochistan, Pakistan.
In the lower right panel, yellow abstract shapes represent the brilliant Harvard prizewinning scientist, Hayat Sindi. She invented a new way to diagnose liver disease, and perhaps eventually AIDS—potentially replacing costly lab tests in remote locations. A social innovator, Sindi co-founded Diagnostics for All and heads the Institute for Imagination and Ingenuity, which will help Middle Eastern scientists write business plans and find investors for their ideas. I lunched with Hayat Sindi twice at PopTech 2011, and found her to be gracious and delightful—fairly glowing with her passion to apply her brilliance in science to improve peoples' lives. Noumenon #3: the power of science to reframe massive challenges.
Noumenon: Knowledge Warriers is a tryptic about women and the quest for knowledge. In the three consecutive panels, Pakistani school girls exit their school gate while Malala Yousafzai confronts the forces of tradition that would hold them back. As a beautiful woman in hijab watches, the courageous Malala Yousafzai stands courageously in front of the wall of the Karakorum Mountain range. This is the first Noumenon in the image -- the implacable granite between Pakistani women and their quest to improve the intellectual lives of others. The hills are a metaphor for the deeply embedded cultural forces she is engaged with in her home country on behalf of women.
Malala delivers a message through the microphone powered by the mythical goddess, Durga (Hindu mountain-goddess, war-goddess). Otherwise called Shakti (power), Durga generates all forms of knowledge of the world. Noumenon #2: the fundamental capacity for human self-agency. Representing the dark episode of her shooting, an ominous black bird scrapes past Malala. Flowing with the flock across the implacable mountain range, the ominous brush with darkness becomes auspicious omens of Black Ibis, reaching out to women in abstract black strokes across those vast foothills of Balochistan, Pakistan.
In the lower right panel, yellow abstract shapes represent the brilliant Harvard prizewinning scientist, Hayat Sindi. She invented a new way to diagnose liver disease, and perhaps eventually AIDS—potentially replacing costly lab tests in remote locations. A social innovator, Sindi co-founded Diagnostics for All and heads the Institute for Imagination and Ingenuity, which will help Middle Eastern scientists write business plans and find investors for their ideas. I lunched with Hayat Sindi twice at PopTech 2011, and found her to be gracious and delightful—fairly glowing with her passion to apply her brilliance in science to improve peoples' lives. Noumenon #3: the power of science to reframe massive challenges.