There are more than 80 embassies across Canberra but an Instagram guru and newcomer to the ACT is hoping to set up one more - an embassy of kindness.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Instagrammer @legojacker - real name Kanesan Nathan - is one half of the driving force behind Instagram community The Embassy of Kindness (@theembassyofkindness), founded in August last year as a way to stimulate a global conversation on kindness.
The premise of the embassy is simple - Nathan and fellow co-founder Amal Tofaili Bleed (aka @toffyinc) take to the streets of whichever city they're in and have intimate conversations with the people they meet about kindness. Think Humans of New York, but with a specific focus on love, connection and benevolence.
"I'm very lucky that creatively I have two projects that were always going to make me see Canberra in a unique way - Legojacker and the Embassy of Kindness," Nathan said.
"And the embassy has been particularly great because I've just been talking to strangers - which in a normal scenario I might not do.
"But because I'm doing this photo project it allows me to walk up to someone and say 'hey, I'm doing a photo project about kindness, do you mind if I ask you a few questions?' and most people are very open to it.
"I knew nobody [in Canberra] and now all of a sudden I know people and we actually have a meaningful connection because we sat down for 20 minutes and talked about kindness - it wasn't just 'oh what music are you listening to? Where do I go and eat?' it was a really meaningful connection."
While the embassy so far has a community of over 1000 followers, Nathan's dream is to take that community offline - right here in the ACT.
"I think for me the biggest and most powerful thing is that I've come to a city of embassies - of all the places in Australia that I could have come to, this is the city of embassies," Nathan said.
"And I've got this idea called an embassy of kindness and obviously my secret dream is that I would like to turn the embassy of kindness into a physical space, so instead of me going and finding people to speak to, people can actually come into a space.
"And I think well why not in Canberra - it's got every other embassy!"
Nathan is hosting a local 'InstaMeet' at the Australian National Botanic Gardens on Saturday as part of a series of worldwide InstaMeets on kindness. Keen Instagrammers, photographers, creatives and "anyone with an interest really" are invited to attend, and will have the chance to turn the camera on themselves to provide their own insight on kindness.
"We set up the embassy because we realised photo-taking and conversations with people in the community were a really powerful way to create something, and I think Canberra has a lot more potential for that," Nathan said.
To join Canberra's kindness InstaMeet on Saturday 25 March 2017 simply meet at the clock on the main concourse of the Australian National Botanic Gardens, Clunies Ross Street, Acton, at 2pm.
