In an American society that subtly—and sometimes not so subtly—steers its citizens to embrace sameness and fear otherness, it can be increasingly difficult to acquire understanding and awareness of others’ circumstances, wants, and needs. Yet that understanding and awareness is vital.
The goal of this “campaign” is simple: to prompt conversations and thoughts about empathy.
Frank (adjective): marked by free, forthright, and sincere expression
Empathy (noun): the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also : the capacity for this
This art project of sorts, conceived and designed by longtime friends Doug Brumley and Jason West, uses the yard signs, buttons, and stickers of an increasingly binary political system and explores the capacity for empathy within it.
The campaign can also serve as a reminder or challenge, for those willing, to practice empathy in an effort to spark connection, decrease misunderstandings, and defuse broad mischaracterizations.
