I Have A Name

My name is Tom Feher. I'm a Seattle based photographer and I need to raise$25,000 for our project, I Have A Name.

Over the past year, my associate, Robert Adler and I have been interviewing and photographing undocumented immigrants from Central America and Mexico at a shelter in Oaxaca, Mexico. The hair-raising and heart breaking stories of their journeys need to be heard, and the attitude of the U.S. toward these women, men and even children needs to be changed.

This project had been incubating in my mind for some time, but what brought it into the real world was a neighbor of mine, who, having hired a Latino man to do some work, refused to call him by his right name and referred to him only as "the Mexican", even though he was from Guatemala. Thus the title of the project: "I Have A Name".

Robert and I spend about 6 months a year in Oaxaca, and will continue photographing and interviewing through this coming spring. Our goal is a traveling exhibition of 24 to 30 images on narrow aluminum sheets designed to be hung from the ceiling, and near life-size, so the viewer will be face-to-face, eye-to-eye with the migrante.  There will be a clear space above the image with a quote from the individual, and the viewer will also have a small booklet with a more extensive biography of each person. We're planning on showing this at about a dozen venues over the period of 18 to 24 months, starting in December of 2014 at Trinity Church, in Boston.

This is an expensive project.  Making  thirty 50"x12.5" prints on aluminum, having them prepared for hanging and shipping them to  "home base"  will  cost $8000. Crating, shipping and insurance to each venue is another $6,000.  P.R. and promotional material is $2500 and figure another $1450 for unexpected expenses and inflation. That comes to $17,950. Travel to the venues, board and setting up the exhibitions easily takes care of the rest.

So we need your help.  Any contribution you can make, from $1.00 up is appreciated, but  those $10, $25 and $50 contributions can add up quickly, and if you're really moved by this cause, we would love to see those three and four figure contributions!

If we go over the $25,000 goal, any extra money (after taxes) will be donated to COMI (Centro de Orientación de Migrantes de Oaxaca), where we have been doing our work. 

Thank you.

Tom

P.S.

The text in the video can't be seen well on small screen, so here it is:

Thanks,

Tom Feher