PROJECT KICK-OFF

26 March 2020

For the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship project I moved from London, where I was working at the UCL Interaction Centre (UCLIC), to Hamburg. It is always exciting to explore and get to know a new city. And there is more than one way to do this, as you will read below. Equally, I was thrilled to start my work at Hamburg University in the department of Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology (BPN), headed by Prof. Röder.

Little did I know that my daily cycles to work would be short lived. It is now one month later and the COVID-19 virus has restricted everyone to home office. Luckily, I already have had the chance to get to know my new colleagues at BPN. They seem like a great bunch!

My colleague Katarzyna Raczy pointed me to this website: https://blind-durch-hamburg.de/

"Blind durch Hamburg" is an initiative of Christian Ohrens. He is a journalist and blogger and has been blind since birth. He offers city tours through Hamburg. Blindfolded and equipped with a cane, you can discover Hamburg from a new perspective under the guidance of Christian. What a great idea!

About the idea to initiate "Blind durch Hamburg" he writes:

"From 2006 to April 2018 I worked in the exhibition "Dialogue in the Dark", an exhibition to discover the invisible, in which sighted visitors can experience everyday situations from a blind person's perspective for 90 minutes.Many of my sighted guests repeatedly expressed the wish to have this exploration experience not only in the protected context of an exhibition, but also virtually outside.

This wish and the experience that not many other blind people in Hamburg make the most of their city and only move in their known area, triggered the project "Blind through Hamburg"."

Given the current situation regarding the COVID-19 virus, I cannot yet go on a tour with Christian. But I will definitely sign up for one of his tours once the situation allows it. An update about this experience will follow!