The Author

"The only way to learn is through an encounter": so wrote the German philosopher Martin Buber.

This idea has inspired the more than twenty years of activity for Andreas Heinecke, who has been creating platforms where people can meet and communicate. A Ph. D. about Jewiness and identity and many years experience as a journalist and documentary writer are the background of his work. He has been committed to integrating marginalised people into the active social pattern, enhancing exactly the qualities related to their diversity, apparently the reason of their exclusion.

With this aim, he created concepts like "Dialogue in the dark" and → "Scenes of silence", where blind guides in the first exhibition and deaf guides in the second, lead visitors with confidence and talent to discover a way to see beyond images and a way to communicate beyond words.

Darkness and silence become media for communication, diversity turns into a chance to enrich our lives.

Visitors are forced to interact in a situation which is beyond stereotypes, prejudices and fears, out of their routine, in a state of de-equilibrium, where the disable person becomes the "able" one, inspiring surprise, respect and understanding.

Andreas Heinecke’s commitment has been recently recognised by the American Foundation → Ashoka, who have named him among their Senior Fellows– the first Social Entrepreneur in Western Europe.