It is a beautiful thing to be human. If there is one lesson I have learned from this journey, surely it is that. Humanity is painful, frightening, and absurd, yet beautiful, nonetheless. Over the past six months, I set out to meet strangers and listen to their stories, hoping to put a face to the name of a city, Grand Rapids. I wanted to know the person sitting on the street corner, the barista whose coffee shop I visit, the nurse, the librarian—those people whose lives intersect with mine, if only for a moment. What were their names? What were their dreams and ambitions? In a world that rarely slows down and is so often superficial, I longed to create connections instead.  


This idea was first inspired by Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York, a journalistic project where Stanton photographs New Yorkers and documents their stories. I was fascinated by Stanton’s ability to capture such vulnerable moments and moved by how it connected people to see our common humanity. Soon thereafter, I learned about the Durham Storymakers—the first of many referrals from my wonderful project advisor. This initiative uses audio recordings to share stories from Durham, North Carolina citizens as a way to explore the community’s divisions. Although these projects differ by modality and focus, they shaped the foundation for my own work. I, too, hoped to reveal some of the barriers that divide us, while also cultivating empathy through the raw and real narratives I would gather.


In early November, I began to seek out people to interview while walking the streets of Grand Rapids. Humbled by the difficulty of getting strangers to speak with me, I eventually began to email many of the local nonprofits seeking interviews with anyone within their organization that would be willing to talk with me. Much to my delight and surprise, my emails were answered, and I began to meet incredible people. Some I met in coffee shops, others within a convent, but the process for each interview remained the same:
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Step 1: Remember to print and bring the consent form (and a pen).

Step 2: Introduce self.

Step 3: Smile. Try to not be awkward.

Step 4: Explain the project. Ask for the interviewee to sign the consent form you remembered
to bring.

Step 5: Give them a copy of the consent form to keep. Begin recording on your phone’s voice memo app.

Step 6: Ask: “What is your story?”

Step 7: Listen. Be curious. Listen more.

Step 8: When they have finished, ask the standard questions that will be used to create their Life Vine (see Leaf Legend), a concept inspired by Giorgia Lupi’s data portraits (see below for
more details).

Step 9: Take their photo. Pretend like you’re a real photographer and you do this all the time. Refer to step 3.

Step 10: Express your gratitude, stop your voice memo recording and depart.


After each interview, I transcribed the voice recording, pulling out any poignant quotes that could align with the photos I had taken. For so many of the stories I heard, this was the most difficult part: choosing just one quote. Early on, I often chose the saddest portion of the story, thinking that it would be eye-opening for those who would view the project. Nevertheless, with the guidance of my advisor, I came to recognize how this could diminish the person and reduce their story to a fragment. A quote from a student of filmmaker Nina Shapiro-Perl gave clarity to this idea and gave context to my interviews going forward:  


‍“I think the greatest thing I’ve learned about is the power of…storytelling to help facilitate the emotional emancipation of any and all participants.” -Tabria Lee-Noonan


Her words struck me as I realized that up to this point, the interviews had been transactional, and I was reaping the benefit. What were participants gaining through this process, especially the vulnerable who may only have spoken to me out of loneliness? I examined the storytelling techniques used by Brandon Stanton and Story Corps founder Dave Isay and saw that I needed to become a much more active participant in the interviews, if I wanted, as Isay says, “to be the vehicle through which people could tell their stories.” If I wanted this to be a mutually beneficial experience for the storyteller and me, I needed to be far more intentional during the interviews. Although imperfectly, from that point forward, I tried to guide each interviewee to a place where he or she could find meaning in the story being shared and walk away with the gift of that knowledge. This meant asking more questions and “kindly interrupting,” as Stanton says, if someone was beginning to ramble.


About halfway through the project, my advisor introduced me to information designer Giorgia Lupi, whose influence is now woven through so much of my work. Lupi is an advocate for “data humanism,” which seeks to move past basic pie charts and line graphs to instead, tell stories with data. With this approach, Lupi is able to present statistics in a way that evokes emotion and curiosity in the viewer, without losing the complexity of the data. As someone pursuing nursing, a profession that champions both the person and the science that guides his or her care, I could see the countless applications of this concept. Could health data be displayed more intuitively? What if patients could personalize their ID bands based on qualitative data about who they are beyond their medical diagnoses? Inspired by two of Lupi’s projects, “What Counts” and “Data Portraits at TED,” I created a list of standard questions to ask at each interview as a way to gather data on each storyteller. Using highly specialized tools like colored pencils, I doodled and created a legend, with a variety of leaves, dots, dashes, and colors to tell the story of my data. These doodles would become my version of Lupi’s data portraits: Life Vines. In creating the storytellers’ Life Vines, I hoped that the viewer would be able to see a fuller picture of who these people are, beyond the photographs and quotes I pulled from their interviews. I also hoped that viewers might be inspired to create their own, using the Leaf Legend as a guide. Nevertheless, from Lupi to Isay, Shapiro-Perl, the Durham Storymakers, and Stanton, this project has been the work of many hands and creative influences, and for that, I am so grateful.


From the beginning, creating this project taught me so much more than I ever expected. I realized how much I missed using my creative muscles, having been in a science major vacuum for the past four years. I was amazed by how difficult it is to walk up to strangers and challenged by the skill it takes to conduct an effective and meaningful interview. Figuring out how to design a website with no prior experience stretched my patience and I learned to savor small triumphs, like when I figured out how to center the page’s title. I got to meet an incredible professor, my project advisor, who I never would have interacted with had I chosen to do a research study or nursing-focused project. And I met so many brave, broken, and wise people who blessed me with their stories and their time. Their lives and the moments that shaped them are shaping me, somehow, as I come to realize how deeply connected we all are. It seems that if you can simply say hello, the stranger may become your friend. If you don’t believe me, try it for yourself and go searching for stories. There’s no telling what you might find. Through this project and as I prepare to become a nurse, I am learning that little matters more than the simple act of presence: taking the time to be with one another, sincerely and without distraction. In a busy world, this is no small challenge. And so, I challenge you: spend the time, find those people in your life whose stories have not yet been told and grant them the chance to speak. You will honor them by asking and they will honor you in sharing. In that space, we experience the gifts of being alive and learn together in hopes that one day, we may learn what it means to be human.