stories from here

Stories from here was a project created to ask, what happens when I have to listen? Think of the people you see every day at work, at the gym and in your neighborhood. Do you often encounter a diversity of thought, wealth or ethnicity? Turns out that we already self-select socioeconomically based on where we can afford to shop, live and who we work with. And according to the American Values Survey, we racially self-select as well [white, black and latinx groups average a majority of friends of the same ethnicity.]

So how does this affect our ability to understand, tolerate and compromise? Thanks to the Adobe Creative Residency, I had the pleasure of traveling across America to document micro-stories. These stories, mixed with the macro factors of our physical location, build a window into what makes a person and validates our experience. My goal at the conclusion of this project is to have a library of immersive portraits that challenge the cycle of giving exclusive visibility (seeing and listening) to those we've already deemed worthy. The stories included in this book are not all of the ones I collected but a diversity of lived experience that I believe will be valuable to you the viewer.