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The Forum: Main Image (Image by Slinkachu - Balancing Act I) used with permission

25/07/2015 GMT

Worlds in Miniature

BBC World Service - The Forum, Worlds in Miniature

Why tiny things appeal to us. With writer Jeff Nunokawa, street installation artist Slinkachu and clinical geneticist Usha Kini.

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)

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