Humanity at the other end
The portrait of us on our about page has a very important story behind it. It’s a story of human connection. A trail of connections. It begins at Rochester ad-week when we saw Tiffany Edwards, engagement and inclusion director at Droga5, speak about diversity and inclusion in the agency world. As a young (one-week old!) company, we were eager to tell her we had just established Meshin Movement on the principle and new idea of connecting people around a table. Could we pick her brain about our idea and see if she could offer any input? She said of course and we were thrilled. Weeks later, we sat with Tiffany in Droga5’s NYC office talking about the agency industry, the divide we all feel in our internal cultures and in society at large, and the importance and power of coming together around a table, from outreach to humanity.
Thrilled with the beautiful connection we felt to Tiffany and our shared views, we left with hugs and all of us appreciating the power of coming together. As we waited for the elevators to carry us down from our great meeting, we saw a photography series by Blaise Hayward in the halls of Droga5. The images were arresting, pulling us in to each person. And then we read the caption below the photos: “… his desire to create meaningful, positive connection reveals itself in his photographic work.” So moved by the shared value in the power of connection, we said to each another, wouldn’t it be incredible to have our photos taken by him? As if it were an impossible dream. But here we were, a month into Meshin getting incredible receptivity to this new and unshared idea we had, so why not reach out? Why not try?
Back at our office we looked up Blaise’s work. “Holy moly, he’s photographed Barack Obama!” We reached out anyway. We described our new company, our outreach that brought us to Droga5 and then the power of connection we felt through his prints. We had to ask, what would it take for Blaise to photograph us for Meshin?
So gracious, he was open to speaking with us.
When we spoke, we shared with him our purpose and our unique partnership as polar opposites that unify into complete balance. So intrigued by our intentions, our start up and our duo, Blaise asked to include us in his Honest Portraits series. These are typically photographs of individuals, but the photo of us represents who we are as a team in Meshin. He visually captured the energy we feel in our opposition as two people and our unity as a team. Yin and yang.
This story is one of many moments of connection we’ve been so fortunate to have experienced in such a short time. One leading to the next and letting us live our purpose of surfacing connections to move people in unified spirit each and every day.
When we approach every situation with a humility and shared perspective, we find ourselves in each other. If you reach out with that mindset, you’ll often find humanity on the other side.
