Historically, salons served as a place where philosophers, mathematicians, journalists, artists, poets and writers could meet and debate and discuss a variety of topics from different fields. Currently, it has many incarnations in urban environments including the NYC Creative Salon and the Tech Salon. These salons provide an excellent place for intimate creative conversations to take place and for makers and theorists to collaborate. On the other hand, the One Salon (started in Palo Alto by Max Song, Adrik McIlroy and Rafael Cosman) found a way to be a lot more open — e.g. diversity in topics, backgrounds, interests — while making an attempt to preserve talk quality and depth. Our goal is to combine the best aspects of both of these salons.

We fundamentally believe that both lecture and discussion are necessary for our events and our only requirement for speakers is that they construct an activity that encourages conversation and lets attendees feel the material they learn. As such, the NYC Salon strives to be something whose Twitter description would be, “TED with friends.”

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In this salon, we will discuss theories of vulnerability and radical softness. Busra Erkara will walk us through how she uses her own vulnerability as a tool and will share different ways to think about softness as a strength.

Busra Erkara is a writer, editor, and sometimes visual artist in New York. After holding staff editor positions at Bullett and Nylon magazines, writing for the likes of Maxim, Vice, and Hearst Digital, and starting a breakfast restaurant out of her bedroom, she currently works as a deputy editor for a media incubator and content studio called Wayward Wild. She is never not busy with ten different projects.