let them stare is a photo project it’s kind of a play on words just because I’ve had so many people stare at me for my physical differences I kind of wanted to play of like you know give them a reason to stare and play off of those differences don’t Define who you [Music] are it’s vertebrae anal cardiac tracheal esophagus renal and limbs so I have the vertebrae so I was born with congenital scoliosis and then also I do have the anal rectal malformation that also have um a little bit of a limb difference and then also I only have a solitary kidney so when you have an anal rectal malformation I was not born with um an anus or rectum so I wasn’t able to relieve myself like normal people this is the very vulnerable part that I never really share with people but I do feel like this is the time to share because if you don’t share then there’s not going to be change another reason why I decided to tell my story is because a lot of hospitals and uh Specialists here and just everywhere are not aware of actr and sometimes you can get told that you’re too complex of a patient or you have too many problems and I think there’s just opportunity for research I wanted this project to first start out as a children’s book I’ve never seen like a children’s book that has real images of children it’s always like illustrations or kind of indirectly pointing at differences and I was like you know when I was a kid I never had met anyone with vro and I felt very alone like very isolated just like I was the only one in the world with this but I was thinking like just imagine if a little child like opened up this book and saw another child with similar or the same difference they have that that bond that that child will have even if they haven’t met this child is like instant but it also creates like resilience and Community right off the bat and showing that oh there’s somebody else out there that is living through the same Journey or might have a similar story um as a photographer too I felt like you know God Made You with these differences to give you a purpose and I felt like this was my purpose is to bring these these differences to life and to to give people a voice who may not be able to