As a partnered program of Seattle Design Festival’s virtual programming, About Time, Listen Now engages our family, friends and neighbors by gathering their personal stories about times when they truly felt connected with someone who was different from themselves.

Each of us comes to our community bringing the stories that have made us who we are. Stories have deep power. One aspect of that power is the ability to either connect or separate us. People come together through work, organizations, and initiatives, but what brings hearts together and moves us to feel beyond ourselves are the personal memories that we share. In that spirit, it is About Time to truly hear from our communities. It is About Time to listen deeply and amplify the individual stories that reflect today’s shared experiences.

We all inhabit a physical position in our community and are nodes within a complex network.

This communal web is constantly in flux, pushing and pulling with the pressure of everyday life, and responding to our own individual influences. When we pause to listen to the story of our community, will we find a moment that moves our hearts? The act of extending beyond one’s place of comfort by sharing a personal story with another opens our hearts and offers us the chance to move closer together.

It is About Time to recognize and share our differences in culture, race, religion, and political viewpoints. It is About Time to remind ourselves what we share as human beings.

We reached out to our communities and asked if they would be willing to share their stories.

We called family, friends and neighbors and explained that we were gathering stories about the many ways people can come together and form meaningful connections through shared memories. We asked if each person would be willing to share a story — a personal moment in their life where they felt truly connected with someone who did not look like them.

We were thrilled with the response and within a couple of weeks we were gathering sound clips from all over the country. We’ve been deeply moved by our community and are excited to share these stories far and wide.

Listen Now is live. Come and take a listen.

We also recommend you visit Design in Public for the full line-up of multi-design discipline events happening August 15-23, 2020, all exploring the theme of About Time.