Ohhh Pittsburgh
no more traveling without my holga and dSLR. Seriously I’ll wear the same clothes the whole trip, no more excuses to not pack my camera gear :)
In my hands I hold two things….
In the left is a soldier’s hat, slightly faded, olive green, and with a red band around the top.
In the right is a pair of soldier’s boots, uncomfortable, simply made of hard rubber, and appears to fit someone the size of a small teenage boy.
Now some may struggle with finding any emotions while looking, wearing, or holding such items. To me they represent years of suffering, a firm suppressive grip on a beautiful culture, and reason to keep pressing on.
It wasn’t till we presented these items to a refugee that I gained a new perspective of them. To a refugee named Shin, a man who spent his entire life in a North Korean prison camp, these items represented both a sense of fear and wonder. Having been born, raised, starved, tortured and emotionally deprived in a concentration camp, for a reason he’ll never know why, these items were something that were so far out of reach.
When he picked up the hat he said he felt a sense of fear, holding an item that he had never been so close to and only feared from afar, he put the hat on and wore it around the office impersonating a soldier. After picking up the boots, Shin explained that he was forced to make them while he lived inside a barbed wire and fortified world.
It wasn’t till Shin sat these items down and walked away from them that I realized the lack of freedom they represented and the simple freedoms we all have. Having once feared them and been forced to create them, Shin now had the littlest freedom to simply just walk away….. to leave them behind and not have to fear them anymore…..and to this account, I hope LiNK can continue to press forward and bring these freedoms to the refugees we find.
For these simple freedoms can make life worth living for…
Learn more about Shin here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms4NIB6xroc
[video]
Here is another booklet that was created all in a nights work… :)
One of the challenges we faced with the program was the cost of printing on a short run of 250 items. To solve this issue, we ripped out the color on the interior pages but left them still intriguing enough to stay attractive. In accomplishing this we were able to slice the printing cost in half.
[video]
“In Los Angeles, all of the stars are walking the streets instead of hiding in the sky.”
The simple side of me really wants to turn off my phone and get one of these instead. Pretty simple and cheap.
“Peek is a simple gadget that allows you to send and
receive email and text messages while you’re on-the-go. For as little as
$15 a month you’ll never miss another email again.”
[video]
Guitar winner today! Mariana congrats.
Haha amazing! He’s representing the LiNK DMZ Shirt!!!!! Legit!
A little booklet we just got printed up here at work for promoting Chapter Enrollment. Can’t wait till I have more photos to design with next year :)
[video]
“eat, sleep and adventure.”
Moving here from Pittsburgh at the beginning of the year has been quite a change when it comes to biking. Pittsburgh, a place with tons of bike trails around the entire city, fun terrain and a community where it’s very common to see people biking to work seems to not extend out to LA. Here are some things I’ve noticed while riding my fixie or bmx bike out in LA/Torrance Area.