Each of the 100 listeners were photographed by the award-winning Mexican American photographer Ada Trillo. These portraits were taken at locations selected by the listeners in public places like favorite restaurants, city park benches, and trails where they felt they could be their best listener.
All of the 100 listeners were strangers to each other at the beginning of the decade. They were randomly paired together into fifty pairs and assigned on the first day of the project to listen to their partner for an hour. These one-hour meetings spent empathetically listening to each other continue annually throughout the decade on the first Saturday of every October. Every year of the project they alternate the location of their meeting. One year they will meet where one of the listeners in the pair feels they listen best; the next year they go to the other’s preferred location.
At the first meeting between the pairs of strangers on October 2, 2021, the pairs of listeners exchanged their framed portrait with their listening partner. These portraits now hang in the homes, sit on the bedside tables, or clutter a work desk as a constant reminder of each other’s shared commitment to listening.