photography

Borderline Humanitarian Crisis

/ Brienna Parsons / Leave a comment

Hey folks!

Earlier this month, I set out on foot from El Paso, TX. The goal was to document the length of the southwest border and through photography of the environment, region, and relevant images, raise money for humanitarian causes.

Today, on Facebook, I started a direct donation button to my personal page to this end. The button is for the Texas RioGrande Legal Aide (TRLA), which is helping represent migrants affected by what has become a humanitarian crisis, abuse, at the border.

On April 30th, it will be Mexico’s Children’s Day. This is a reminder for us to make a drastic change in our treatment of people at the border, and most importantly those children seeking asylum.

If you can’t directly support TRLA through the link in my Facebook page or are unable to do so here, please consider sharing my photography project.

I began the project on March 16th, and am calling it Open Borders. The photos are for sale at my eponymous gallery on 500px. All, 100%, of proceeds from any photo purchases made during the month of April will be donated to the following organizations:

Thank you for caring about this issue.

3/29 Update: Halfway to San Diego, CA to photograph the Tijuana border. After that heading north for a short personal photowalk before heading back towards the Rio Grande border.

Here’s a sneak-peek into the gallery while you’re here:

Wanna Talk About Nuts? Let’s get nuts:

/ Brienna Parsons / 1 Comment

“That’s crazy!”

They always reply the same when I tell them that I’ve been walking since El Paso, TX.

However, this response makes me stop and think; is crazy not doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?

Walking across America is far from doing the same thing over and over again. Each mile, unless you’ve walked it before, is a new one; each flower, insect, bird, animal, and person, is new; every photo or conversation from it, is fresh.

Nothing is done over and over again when you do it this way. The people, the places, the languages. All of it changes with each hectare.

In this way alone, it isn’t crazy to do. Besides, people work day-in, day-out, drink, eat, and sleep, relatively the same each and every day. A great many may wrongly expect that they’re secure in this routine.

Yet, if one were to ask almost anyone in America today, if their home, family, and employment, are secure without a doubt the response would be: “no.” The insecurity is obvious when passing through any town and city. So how many would say that they’re safe from the inequity of the American economic system? Again, none.

These questions don’t need to be answered; we see today that mental health, gone without care, is as detrimental as cigarettes. Depression grows rampant in every community but the statistics are harder pressed to those struggling with income, housing, or friendships. And to this last point, we find ourselves less surrounded by friends, and more surrounded by faces and followers; more alone than ever as our world focuses on polarization.

So what’s really crazy? Reading the horrors of reality online and doing nothing, hoping that it will be proven false, or magically resolved? Maybe even, ignoring or shutting out these facts?

Or is it crazier to attempt reducing one’s need for the goods or services aggravating these issues while searching for another way through? While documenting what’s still here. While searching for solutions. While limiting opportunity to be a perpetrator of accidental harm.

I obviously chose the latter. It seemed less crazy to try something new, something scary, and try to be a better, more self-reliant person. Especially compared to the insecurity of today, it seemed like the sensible choice compared to doing the same thing over and over again.

Here, I want to point out what’s really crazy, who’s perpetrating the insanity, and how we can collectively see to our mental health, metaphorically, as well as in the most absolute reality.

When they say “that’s crazy,” I’ll be sure to hold up a mirror before replying: “Perhaps, but how much compared to what you see here?”