Over the past year, I’ve been engaging people on the sidewalks from New York to San Francisco with this question: “How would you help heal our broken world?” Random people have been pausing to write well-thought-out answers on pieces of maps. Their unique responses, which included a tracing of their hand, have sparked the following…
While creatively traversing the country from New York to San Francisco, I’ve been asking random people on the streets or in coffee shops this question: “How would you help heal our broken world?” In response, individuals are invited to trace their hand on a piece of map, representing our world, and record their answer. This…
Open Hands, a PowerPoint presentation with an interactive follow-up exercise, challenges students to make positive choices and rethink their responsibilities as global citizens. During the presentation, students learn about a fictional refugee character named Babette. Babette’s social status changes, after working years without pay, when she wins the lottery. Instead of choosing a new life…
Do you know the fictional story “Babette’s Feast” by Isak Dinesen? Babette, once a famous chef, is a refugee, who escapes the French civil war and resettles in Norway. For the next twelve years, she cooks for two devoutly religious sisters—without pay. One day, Babette’s financial position changes, so she decides to prepare a lavish…
Where in the world is Open Hands now? While creatively traversing the country, we’ve been randomly engaging people on the streets with this question: “How would you help heal our broken world?” Open Hands, inspired by Babette’s Feast on stage, first debuted on the streets of New York City in March of 2018. This mobile…
Over the last decade after creating large healing art installations for ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Michigan, serving tens of thousands of visitors, managing around fifty volunteers a year, figuring out how to financially sustain my art business, struggling to secure a venue to host my work, and buying over 335,000 interactive supplies for the ArtPrize…
As an artist, I usually think B•I•G. If my sex-trafficking exhibit requires a forty-foot storage container, I figured out how to rent one or borrow one. If my mental health exhibit requires 5,000 golf pencils, so that 70,000 people can write notes, I figure out how to buy 5,000 pencils (for only $200!). But while…