9/24/2017 2 Comments through their eyesHave you ever had one of those moments when you knew without a shadow of a doubt where God was leading you? Where everything in your life up until that moment was preparing you for this one. That proverbial baseball bat has recently taken a swing at me and had a clean hit. I was listening to a podcast over the summer where a pastor from Spartanburg, SC had combined his study of and passion for photography with his call to serve others in a beautiful project called Through Our Eyes. The Through Our Eyes Project puts cameras in the hands of the homeless to allow them the dignity to tell their own story. Their stories are layered and complex, they are perfectly mundane at times and full of pain other times. They have victories to celebrate and they have failures to learn from. The beauty comes when we, as the viewers, can connect to their stories realizing we are all more alike than we are different. That every one of us wants to feel safe, to feel accepted and to feel loved. After the podcast I reached out to Jason, the project's founder to know more about it and if I could get involved in some way. Jason explained the project's goals were to give the photographers a voice, to share words of hope and encouragement and to invite the community to hear their stories and lend a hand.
With the project in its second year in Spartanburg, Davis and I drove down for the gallery showing in August. Jason and his family welcomed us with open arms as we met for lunch (think best hot dog ever!) and chatted about the project. Then it was on to the gallery. The show consisted of 20 images, selected by a committee of jurors, in the gallery. A nearby gallery hall played host to every camera that was returned (out of the 100 distributed) and a 4x6 of each image on the film roll in sequential order. Walking through the hall was a profound experience feeling very much like you were walking in the photographer's shoes very briefly. Images of friends, shelter beds, family pets, cars that also substitute as homes, and urban landscapes. Each series showing someone who deserves to be here, to be happy and to be respected. After the gallery visit, Jason took us to the home you see in the photo gallery above. This mission house is made available to friends of Jason's church and was graciously offered to us for the night. Davis and I were so honored and grateful to stay here and spent some time once we settled in just talking about what we'd seen. It was an amazing experience as a parent to answer questions like "why don't those people have homes?", "why can't they just get jobs to buy a house?", "what happens to their kids when the parents don't have any where to go?". According to the Raleigh Rescue Mission there are more than 4,000 people in Wake County without homes and almost 3,000 of them are children in the Wake County Public School System according to the News & Observer. Staggeringly, nearly 1 in 30 kids in Wake County experience homelessness. Jason has generously offered to help bring this project to Raleigh in the fall of 2018. We would welcome your help!
2 Comments
Langdon Harris
9/25/2017 09:35:14 am
This is fantastic! Our crew would love to help!
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Tyler Cunningham
9/25/2017 07:06:19 pm
Thanks so much dear friend, would love to have you all!
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aboutWelcome to my blog Photos + Footnotes. I am Tyler Cunningham and I love taking pictures. It is the best way I know how to express myself and my view of the world. It's when I'm behind the camera that I'm most comfortable. I see colors and details, I observe connections between people. I see joy and pain, abundance and poverty. I am my least judgmental behind the lens, simply seeing and recording. It is how I process the abundance of information the world throws at me. ArchivesCategories |
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