In our so-called advanced world of shopping malls and online stores packed to the brim with mass-produced "stuff" manufactured in power-guzzling, environment-polluting factories for those with the wealth to buy them, has consumerism spiralled out of control? When did the things we enjoy become things we buy rather than make?

For nearly half a century, the Lost Violin of Kraków lay hidden in pieces, scattered throughout the house abandoned by victims of the Holocaust, until a master craftsman meticulously brought it back to life in their honour.

The Nazis murdered an estimated 1.1 million people in Auschwitz, most within the first few hours of arrival. What intense confusion, fear, and unimaginable brutality must they have experienced on their way to the gas chambers?

Are there words adequate to describe the emotion of passing through the gates of Auschwitz? Can a photograph truly do justice to the memory of those who met their dreadful end in the gas chambers at the end of the railway tracks? Those were my thoughts as I entered the infamous camp, which left such an indelible stain on 20th-century history.

For centuries, millennia even, people have gathered around a single focal point to share stories, sing, chant, make music and celebrate their communities. And yet, as the wheels of time have turned, these ancient practices have faded from memory as digital screens have become our new focal point.

In 2013 a bunch of "scruffy skateboarders" challenged the might of the cultural elite of London. At first, few took much notice, but over the next 18 months, the skateboarders unleashed the power of local support with dramatic effect.

For nearly 200 years, Elmina Castle was one of the most prominent staging posts of the transatlantic slave trade. Today it stands as a reminder of humanity's inhumanity of the past. Or does it?

Despite being one of the most essential minerals on our planet, vital for maintaining human life, how many of us have ever considered where the salt we use every day comes from?

How many stories could the crumbling walls of the old prison in Port Louis tell? Few would be surprised if they were stories of regret and despair for misdeeds which led to incarceration. More curious is the relief some prisoners must have felt as they entered the prison for the first time. Theirs are the largely untold stories of the willing prisoners who chose prison as an escape from the hardships of the plantations.

Cut off from the outside world, the inhabitants of this village with no name, located deep in the forest of Madagascar, have learned to become almost entirely self-sufficient. With no running water or electricity, everything in the village had to be done by hand. Are there lessons we can learn from their experiences?

Despite the pain of leaving her children behind in Madagascar, Janine (not her real name) was full of hope for the future when she arrived in Mauritius to begin a new career in the restaurant industry. Instead she discovered she had been trafficked into a brutal world of prostitution and sexual violence. This is her story.

In the four years that it ruled over Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge was responsible for the deaths of an estimated two million people. Mass graves were still being discovered years after the fall of the regime, such was their disregard for humanity. To date, over 20,000 burial sites have been identified; the United Nations have declared these as the sites of multiple crimes against humanity. The people of Cambodia simply call them the Killing Fields.

Look at this photograph; what do you see? On the surface, it is a story of everyday poverty in the 21st century but, as I have learned, there is always more to every story if we are prepared to look deeper into the narrative.

I have always been drawn to the eyes of the people I meet. As a window to the soul, our eyes show truth no matter what face we choose to display to the world. And so it was with this mother I met in a quiet fishing village on the outskirts of Mumbai.

As war and conflict continue to ravage the Middle East, record numbers of refugees have been forced to flee their homes in search of safety. They have become the faceless, forgotten people whose individual stories have been lost along the way.