The Beginning

Hello (:

Welcome to the Vulnerability Project. This the blog that I (this is Patty speaking) have created to keep everyone who is supporting us in the loop about what is going on with our research and art project.

You see, I, my friends, am travelling to Vienna on July 15th with a good friend of mine, Kristen! We're currently raising funds through Kickstarter, but have hit some bumps along the road, and so are putting our fundraising video up on youtube. If you are interested in possibly funding us, and would like to make a pledge, please send us an e-mail at thevulnerabilityproject@gmail.com. We can use any and all support!



Basically, Kristen and I are fascinated by the fact that humans appear to have an innate desire to connect with one another. Using our different mediums of artistic interest (mine being film, and hers being photography), we want to interview people and explore how vulnerability and connection impact their lives and relationships. By the end of three (maybe four?) weeks, we will have enough footage to create a short film of interviews on vulnerability and photo collection on connection.

We chose Vienna because we wanted to see the far-reaching effects of vulnerability outside of the United States. Vienna is a city of music and art and culture, and since I speak German, it was a naturally place to want to explore and get to know. If we receive enough funding, Kristen and I will look for a second location that will be interesting to juxtapose with the environment of Vienna (our thoughts so far are a small town in Ireland, because we want to see the difference between a big city and a small town). Vienna is also home to the "Kaffee-Kultur", or Coffee-culture: a culture revolving around the concept of meeting people for hours and sipping a cup of coffee with a good book or more commonly, a good friend. Seeing as these coffee-hour friendships run deep, we want to explore how this particular culture approaches the ideas of 'vulnerability' and 'connection'.

So far, we're funding out own tickets to Germany (where my parents live) as well as providing the equipment we both need. Kristen got her camera from school and my camera is actually one that belongs to Kristen's dad. Using our summer earnings (I'm a research assistant with the Stanford Closeness Project and Kristen is a photography teacher), we're paying for various other pieces of equipment and whatever we cannot get covered by our fundraising.

It's so exciting to be exploring this topic and seeing how people around the world interact with one another, and how on some level, all human beings are the same in their desire for connection and need for vulnerability. Both of us will be blogging here and updating all summer! We are so excited for this adventure and so see where we end up!

Check it out and subscribe for updates!

Lots of love,

Patty