Corn to Concrete Project

What connects us?

Rediscovering connection through cultural exchange and conversations with strangers starting from the cornfields in Ohio to concrete cities across America

About

The idea for this project first spawned when I was still living in London. I had already decided to move back home to the states and buy a van to live in about six months prior, and after months and months of futile job applications, I realized I may have to work a job well outside of my field. Still, I dreamed of how I could spend my free time living out my passions without restraints: that looked like talking to strangers each place I pass through, being a journalist even if only to myself and a small audience, and documenting America in its current manifestations. Being able to travel in a van that doubles as a home is a privilege and enables me to get the whole picture, something that I wouldn’t have access to being stationed in one place; a Zoom call with a stranger 800 miles away fails to capture the faint scent of oncoming rain in the air, the hollowness of an abandoned town and the old couple still living there, the bustling of a big city and the reactions of pedestrians. I hope to capture stories of every day people through three mediums: short writings, short videos, and black and white film photographs.

My interview for each person is short and sweet, and I always strive for it to be more conversation than interview. I ask five simple questions free from controversy and career. My goal with this specific project is to find out what unites us rather than divides, what it is that makes us all human. There is also a short segment where we can each teach one another a short dance or recipe originating regionally or ethnically.

I try to bring out the inner child, the playfulness and dance being lost in day-to-day life in modern America that was once prominent in most (if not all) civilizations throughout history. America contains a unique, rich diversity of people from all over the globe-but we are also a place that uniquely loses and erases this cultural richness, both through colonization and assimilation. In my case, my great-greats and recent ancestors from Belgium, Ireland, Sweden, and Germany weren’t all forced to come here but came here in hopes of a better future. In doing so, language, recipes, clothes, and all other traditions were lost, so much so that we no longer have family recipes or tradition at all.

That being said, I hope to help reverse this forgetting; to help people remember, to document, and to re-invent what has been lost, perhaps even uncovering parts of my own heritage in the process.

Check out these interviews at the social media channels linked below.