A version of the well known Humans of New York photography project, which has been replicated around the world in various cities and college campuses, will be coming to Trinity later this month.
Humans of TU, a project created by members of the Trinity Diversity Connection, will feature photographs of randomly selected Trinity students, faculty and staff around campus along with quotes from interviews, much like the fashion of Humans of New York.
“The aim of us bringing this to Trinity is for students to get to know each other better because Trinity students are very active and involved in a lot of things, but there are sets of groups of people who hang out with each other,” said sophomore Dzung Vu, president of TDC. “We really want to break the bubbles within Trinity and have students actually knowing and supporting each other more.”
After TDC restructured itself””becoming a student organization in its own right rather than a parent organization to smaller clubs””they began to think about the kinds of projects they could create on their own. That’s when the idea for this project was born.
“Our mission goes back to how we were founded,” said Soi Smith, coordinator for diversity and intercultural relations for student involvement and advisor for TDC. “We want to promote social justice and diversity. A lot of times, TDC is looked at as the organization that brings food to campus, and we want to do more impactful things on campus. We want to be known as one of the groups on Trinity’s campus that has had a huge impact on people’s growth and understanding of diversity.”
The photos and quotes will be posted on the Trinity Diversity Connection Facebook page, as well as made into posters that will be hung around different locations on campus. The posters will aim to raise interest in the Humans of TU project and will feature a QR code that will link to the Humans of TU photos on TDC’s Facebook page.
“It’s so beautiful when you get to know other people’s backgrounds,” Smith said. “I think it’ll be an awesome project that not only the campus community will appreciate, but even prospective students or just people looking to come onto campus.”
First year Skylar Cho, vice president of public relations for TDC, has been creating possible interview questions to ask those who are photographed.
“There’s so much you can learn when you actually talk to somebody and get to know them,” Cho said. “Each person has a universe inside them, so when you get to know them, you get to know another universe and that’s really cool. This project is going to get rid of the middle process of getting to know a person so you can get to see what the person is truly like.”
TDC plans to begin the project in the next couple of weeks and hopes that it will continue for years to come.
“I really want it to be a legacy project that we can pass down and get more people involved with,” Vu said. “Although we’re the people starting the project, we really want other people to contribute as well.”
TDC is currently seeking help from individuals or organizations who would like to be involved with the project. Anyone interested in helping out with or participating in Humans of TU can contact TDC at [email protected].
