29 Stories of February: Blog profiles area homeless
WASHINGTON - A Washington woman is helping raise awareness about local homelessness through a project titled "29 Stories of February."
HiUan Kang Haaga, a printmaker, writer and fiber artist originally from Korea, started the blog because of her love of storytelling. Her project began in December with a series titled "31 Stories of December," which profiled her friends and acquaintances with her images and their own words.
Kang Haaga called the first series an "amazing experience" in a blog post at the culmination and thanked all of the participants.
Now, she is in the final days of "29 Stories of February," a series that she wrote was inspired by her upbringing in Lisbon, Portugal and her parents' work with "immigrants, the homeless, and Roma people."
Kang Haaga wrote that she has "always been aware of the marginalized and needy" around her and shared that, while it is "impossible to completely know a person through one encounter," she was drawn to the project because of photography's ability to "capture a moment" and "the beauty of writing that seeks to preserve the moments that make up our lives."
Each of the posts includes a series of portraits accompanied by text that tells the individual's story and in both their own words and Kang Haaga's.