Modern Caravanserai
Help build the next layer of this work.
For centuries, caravanserais were crossroads along the Old Silk Road where travelers, stories, and ideas met.
Modern Caravanserai reimagines that ancient architecture of encounter as a new ecosystem for perceptual education, expanding our capacity to see beyond fixed narratives.
People don’t change because they hear a better argument. They change when their way of seeing loosens a little. Ancient storytelling knew how to do this. We’re rebuilding that craft for today, and testing how it works.
How we see determines how free we are.
The Scher/Azad Method
Pause.
Turn toward.
Be curious.
Notice change.
What We Are Building
01
Cultural Research
Hakawati, our nonprofit, stewards the 180-puppet Karagöz archive, now digitized to UNESCO and museum standards, and is reconstructing a canon of stories that was nearly lost.
02
Live Experiences
Keynotes, performances, immersive installations, and gatherings where audiences do not just hear a story. They become part of it.
03
The Scher/Azad Perception Index
In partnership with the Center for Constructive Communication at the MIT Media Lab, we are developing a research instrument that measures how flexible a person’s perception is, and whether paradoxical story can change it.
04
The Scher/Azad Perception Portrait
The personal version of that research: a living picture of how you interpret, what you resist, and where change is possible, tracked over time.
05
Digital Caravanserai
A subscription platform that carries the method into daily life through story journeys, conversation, and creative practice.
Walk This Road With Us
Donate
Support Hakawati’s archive scholarship, research, and public programs.
Invest
Help build Disruptive Narrative, the company that will bring the platform and story experiences to people at scale.
Partner
Host a residency, commission new work, or explore a research or learning partnership with your institution.
Start a Conversation
Interested in hosting, funding, researching, or building with us? Start with a conversation.
Or write to us.