Conversations & Notes

Why Meridian

The line that divides

In 1884, delegates from twenty-five nations gathered to agree on a single line — one that would divide the world into East and West and give every place on Earth its coordinates. They chose a meridian running through Greenwich, in London.

It was a feat of science. For centuries, sailors had been lost at sea because they couldn’t measure where they were. It took astronomers, clockmakers and mathematicians to solve it. The meridian that came out of that work gave the world a shared language of place and time — maps, time zones, and later the coordinates behind every phone and every journey.

A single line, drawn by technology, that connected cultures across the planet.

The line that connects

In the East, the same word means something else entirely. In traditional Chinese medicine, meridians are the invisible channels through which energy flows, linking every part of a living body into one whole. Nothing is separate; everything is connected.

In the West, a meridian is where things are divided. In the East, it is where things are joined.

I’ve always lived on both sides of that line.

Why Meridian

With roots in Asia and a life shaped in Europe, I’ve spent my life moving between cultures — and between worlds that rarely speak to each other: technology and art, business and culture, data and taste. My career began in robotics and technology; my curiosity has always pulled me towards galleries, ateliers and the people who make culture.

I’ve learned that the most interesting ideas aren’t found at the centre of any one world. They are found on the lines between them — where an engineer meets a curator, an investor meets an artist, an Eastern tradition meets a Western market.

Meridian is a series of conversations with the people who live on those lines: founders, curators, investors and creatives who connect worlds instead of choosing one.

The highest point

There is a third meaning. The word comes from the Latin meridies — midday: the moment the sun stands at its highest point and nothing is left in shadow.

That is what I hope each conversation brings: clarity. A moment where two worlds meet, and something new becomes visible.

Meridian, with Nhi Pm.
From London, where East and West begin.