Who We Really Are

After visiting the science museum of Virginia, my thoughts gathered about who we really are. It was my first visit to a science museum since I am not more involved into science; however I'm glad that I went there. I was lucky enough that the race exhibit was open and it was one of the best exhibits I ever saw. There were a lot of different ways to present ideas and fun to learn because of visual aids, reading aids, and some other activities. I went through the exhibit and I was amazed to learn that human beings are identical and the point of different lies in our beliefs and thoughts. HAPA project was eye catching because of its unique way of presentation. There were sculptures people of different ages captioned appropriately. Also, we were presented with material to present our ideas about “What we are”. The idea behind the activity was to feel empathy about it. People can reduce prejudice by understanding different cultures and it enables us to understand how we are alike by exposing the community to diversity.

Kip Fulbeck was the inventor of the project. He is a photographer, artist, filmmaker, writer, and a performer. He began his project in 2001 by traveling the country and taking snaps of 1200 photos were HAPAS. Hapa essentially means half in Hawaiian language. Fulbeck defined Hapa as mixed ethnic heritage with partial roots in Asian or Pacific Islander ancestry with American. Each individual's photograph was taken in the same way; from their shoulders and above. The sculptures were made more personal since their views were presented under each photo in their own handwriting. To elaborate, one of the sculptures at first instant revealed an image of African American women yet she was a Filipino. She wrote ''I'm ...