I wanted to see if sharing knowledge as a free gift had the same effect on people as sharing gifts did, so I hosted a watercolor class that was free to attend if the students gave their cards to me for my Tokens of Kindness booth. People enjoyed this event so much that they created more cards for my booth while I was traveling the following week. I released high-resolution images of these pieces to the public for fair use.
Tokens of Kindness Project Statement
I love connecting people through art and design. I have been investigating the idea that a single kind act can start ripple effect of kindness that radiates through a community. My research aims to trigger that initial kind act. I began experimenting with a community design piece aimed to solicit kind acts in exchange for goods and services. I began this work with this pop-up booth selling handmade goods in exchange for special tokens on which customers wrote kind acts that they did or promised to do.
This experiment was the main focus of my research at Iowa State University and is the basis for a method about which I’m currently writing and designing a workbook.
​​​​​​​

Back to Top