This article is about a project that I believe is worthy of your attention. It’s the type of thing that will make our world a better place. Nobody asked me to write about this or compensated me for doing so.
The Strangers Project
A few years ago, walking through Washington Square Park, I discovered The Strangers Project, a gift to the world conceived by Brandon Doman.
Since Brandon started this project in 2009, Brandon has collected over 35,000 stories from strangers.
Each story is handwritten in black ink on a sheet of plain white 8.5×11 paper.
To share your story you must catch Brandon at one of his pop-up exhibits and submit it in person. You cannot submit it by email, or scan a PDF. Nor can you type it, print it and bring it to him.
You must show up in person. Brandon will give you a clipboard with the sheet of paper, a pen, and the rules. You go off to find a quiet corner, and then bring it back to him when you’re finished.
There are a few rules:
- use only one side of the page
- do not identify yourself
- the story must be true
Beyond that, what you write — or draw (some people draw) — is up to you. When you return the clipboard to Brandon, he takes it back and puts the page in a folder without looking at it, to preserve the anonymity.
What do people share?
This is not the filtered, marketing-style doublespeak of social media updates. This is real life.
People share their truth.
Pain and heartbreak. Suffering. Stories of disconnection from family, friends, and self. Tales of fear and shame.
And yet within the heartbreak there is hope. Many stories include tales of overcoming and breaking through. They offer moments of triumph and courage, resilience and love.
Airing Out the Secrets
Brandon’s mobile exhibit evokes a feeling of laundry drying on a clothesline. Each page is clipped to string using a clothes pin. The string is held up by support rods. The entire structure is illuminated by a string of lights.
Many of the stories include tales of pain, heartbreak, addiction, estrangement, and suffering. It can feel a little like an airing of “dirty laundry.” And then, as you continue to read story after story (it’s hard to stop at just one), it hits you: by giving voice to these stories and the humans behind them, Brandon is helping us destigmatize the shame we may feel around our stories.
Cultivating Community
The stories magnetize a sense of community among the strangers who gather to read them and with the anonymous humans who shared them.
Community. It comes from the Latin root that means “common.”
As you read the stories you come to know the truth that beneath the surface, we are not that different from each other.
Perhaps the only thing that divides us is our reluctance to air out our secrets. In a space where truth is honored, shame dissolves. And in that clearing we see the univsrsality of the human experience.
What ever you’re going through, you are not alone.
How to Find The Strangers Project
The Stranger’s Project is worthy of a spot in your news feed. You will be inspired and enlightened by what people share. You can follow The Strangers Project on social media:
If you’re in NYC, there is an exhibit through September 2 at Fountain House Gallery.
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