Charleston, SC - Photographer Alice Keeney and musician Leah Suárez, collectively the founders of Project Speak Up, will present HELLO I AM: A Celebration of Identity on Thursday, May 8 at Kudu Coffee. The opening reception will begin at 7pm and will include a multimedia presentation, followed by a reception lasting until 10pm in the courtyard of Kudu Coffee located at 4 Vanderhorst Street, in the heart of Downtown Charleston. This event is free of charge and open to the general public. Complimentary wine will be served and live music by Leah Suárez, Gerald Gregory and David Linaburg. "SEE YOU AT KUDU!" Many thanks to the talented artist Nathan Durfee for producing the Hello I Am artwork. Warmest appreciation to John, Monika, Ryan and the rest of the staff at Kudu for giving our work a home.Keeney and Suárez have joined forces to create an inevitably powerful presentation illuminating the core of identity and the need to SPEAK UP! The two artists have explored the lives of 16 individuals currently living in the community of Charleston, South Carolina. Each individual was asked a series of identical questions in a video interview. Keeney's and Suárez's artistic response is captured in photographs, music and prose, with the hopes of bringing to light the need to start somewhere...anywhere...a conversation in finding our own identities. Hello I Am is the first of many projects planned for Project Speak Up and will continue to explore identity on a community level as well as nationally and globally.
HELLO I AM: A Celebration of Identity is showing at Kudu Coffee May 8 - June 8.
EXPOSE COMMONALITY THROUGH DIFFERENCE
CREATE TOLERANCE THROUGH DIALOGUE
FIND PURPOSE THROUGH IDENTITY
CREATE TOLERANCE THROUGH DIALOGUE
FIND PURPOSE THROUGH IDENTITY
16 different people. 16 different places of birth. 16 different homes. 16 different experiences. 16 different answers to the same exact questions. How many times have you written your name on that little sticker that reads "Hello My Name Is..."? And what if that sticker asked you to dare to define yourself - not by your name, but what makes you simply you? What if all anyone ever saw was your response...and did not judge you on the color of your skin, your preference of sexuality, your "foreign" accent or dialect, the spelling of your name or the god you choose to worship, but rather on the definition of your choosing. What if we had that conversation with one person a day? One person a week?
- Main Entry: iden·ti·ty
- Pronunciation: \ī-ˈden-tə-tē, ə-, -ˈde-nə-\
- Function: noun
- Inflected Form(s): plural iden·ti·ties
- Etymology: Middle French identité, from Late Latin identitat-, identitas, probably from Latin identidem repeatedly, contraction of idem et idem, literally, same and same
- Date: 1570
2 a: the distinguishing character or personality of an individual
