A multi-media storytelling series exploring how people across cultures define and live their purpose.
Tanzania, Honduras, Cuba, Ghana, New York, Bali, and more
Film,
Photography
35
videos
20
countries
80+
hours of recorded audio interviews
Through intimate interviews and portrait photography, Purpose Is features voices from Tanzania, Cuba, Puerto Rico, New York, and beyond—documenting how purpose is shaped by community, ancestry, daily rituals, and creative expression. What began as a personal inquiry has evolved into a growing archive of cultural insight, offering diverse perspectives on meaning, identity, and belonging in a rapidly changing world.
Purpose Is began with a question: what does purpose mean around the world? At the time, I was a sophomore in college searching for what purpose meant to me. I hadn’t seen many examples of it outside my immediate community, and I wondered- how do people in other cultures understand purpose? Is it something they seek, inherit, or simply live?
That question became a journey. From there, I followed purpose wherever it led—across rural villages in East Africa, through the streets of Havana, New York City, and Bali—talking with pastors, farmers, elders, teenagers, musicians, street vendors, and more.
Each edition of Purpose Is aims to expand our collective vocabulary and references around purpose to inspire purpose-driven living in all of us.
Purpose Is is rooted in a belief that representation matters. When we hear diverse expressions of purpose, we gain more than perspective, we gain possibility. In a generation grappling with loneliness and the erosion of meaning, Purpose Is offers something restorative: stories that reconnect us to each other and to a deeper sense of why we’re here. The series has sparked meaningful cross-cultural dialogue around identity, community, and intention, reaching audiences across five countries and amplifying underrepresented voices through visual storytelling. By centering everyday people; farmers, artisans, youth, and elders, it expands the narrative of who holds wisdom and how purpose is lived.
