The On Being Project is a nonprofit media and public life initiative that explores the intersection of social healing and poetry. They are a starting point for the exhausted and overwhelmed and needed help visualizing Kindness, by Naomi Shihab Nye. This poem, written in the 50's, emphasised the importance of empathy and knowing how to respect others. These are very relevant words in today's political climate, and that is why I took a typographical approach to the piece. Words can't kill, but they pave the roads of death and in the same way, they can make us better. Visualizing a poem means visualizing words and I believe the connotations of letters forms can be a political statement. We live in days when all art should have an intent. Every pencil stroke should be a mighty move to change the world and I try to achieve this in every commission.

My Role was:

After long discussions with Erin Colasacco and the supervision of the author about the best way to represent the poem, I designed and animated the film in three formats (film + squared + vertical). It was interesting to discuss in what ways the words, written in the 60's still worked today and in what ways they needed context. The piece mixed typography and illustration and had minimal animation in order to let the powerful voice of the author speak. In this case, the animation had to enhance the words, not compete with them.