Concerned Citizen

Artist Statement

I was fortunate to show up in Provo to find the man in the video as my roommate.  It amazed me how great of a guy her is and how busy he always was.  I wasn't your normal busy of chasing girls and watching football games though, he is the vice president of a few clubs on campus (Neurology, Kennedy Center Study Abroad to name a few), he volunteers at the hospital weekly, hosts multi-cultural dinners for friends and others non-United Statesians he meets to join in.  It really blew my mind how much he did.  Then a couple semesters after living together and him having backpacked around South America for 6 months, he decided to start a non-profit organization.

As our piece indicates, Taylor Ottesen helps young people in India pay for education in order to further their careers and thereby help them to provide for their families and escape the clutches of extreme poverty and hardship.  The biggest reason we wanted to feature Taylor is that he is a college-aged young adult that figured out a way to help other people on the other side of the world after one simple act of kindness.  Because most of us don't have the money necessary to travel to India to have a similar experience, we wanted to show that experience to other people to hopefully motivate them to look for ways to be more concerned citizens, not necessarily with Taylor's foundation KVM, but even in their own communities.

Reflecting on the videos we saw in class, we wanted to show parts of these destitute Indian villages to help those that view this video get an idea of what these people's lives are like.  We show harsh conditions, but we also show smiling people.  Taylor showed us many photos of himself with the natives who look happy and content, even amid hardship.  While the video about porch-sitting didn't show neighborhoods quite as destitute as these, it does reflect a similar sense of community.  Just like the people featured in that video, Taylor has helped people and accomplished much, even though it may not seem like much to a citizen of the United States looking from the outside in.

While considering our reading from the last week and the differences between Storyland and Dataland, we feel like what Taylor is doing is combining the two ideas to make considerable contributions to a community.  Not only do we consider the Storyland aspect of the satisfaction of helping people and inspiring others to action by getting a glimpse into their lives, but we also get an idea of a Dataland aspect of his plan because he lets us know exactly how much we can help and how little we have to do to do it.  His story motivates and inspires us, makes us want to believe that even small acts of charity can help people, and he gives us a concrete and physical plan to do it.