Advertisement

Arts & Entertainment

#ObserveDallas2016: How a rebel with a camera is changing Dallas

The city of Dallas doesn't have a public art culture. At least, that's what photographer Richard Andrew Sharum thinks. 

"All the art [in Dallas] is contained inside, imprisoned, away from the people. You might have to pay a fee to get in." Sharum said.

Richard Andrew Sharum, the photographer in charge of the #ObserveDallas project.
Richard Andrew Sharum, the photographer in charge of the #ObserveDallas project. (Courtesy Photo / Richard Andrew Sharum)

While cities like Austin, Chicago and New York City celebrate art, Dallas tore down its historical architecture and covered its murals, leaving only vague and unrelateable art to the public, Sharum says. He believes Dallas public art should tell the story of its people — people who are just as important as the people depicted inside buildings.

"Downtown shouldn't just be a place of concrete that you walk through to work every day. It should be an interactive place that just happens to be where you work," Sharum said.

Dallas is a city of the Cowboys and the Rangers and Kennedy's death; it was only when Sharum explored the world that he realized what Dallas was missing, the larger conversation of public art which Dallas was not participating in.

Advertisement

"I think it's the people's fault. I think they don't demand these things because they don't know they should be," Sharum said. He's not talking about wedding photography or happy babies, but simply moments in life, moments both happy and sad. If that's not what people want, Sharum doesn't care.

News Roundups

Catch up on the day's news you need to know.

Or with:

"Maybe they should see those things. Maybe they should find out what it's like for a family who doesn't have any money to have their child get chemo injections every week. The whole point of Observe Dallas is empathy. Getting everybody to feel like they're party of something bigger than Dallas is empathetic," Sharum said. 

"It may not be happy, it may not make them feel good inside, but maybe it will do them good in the long run."

Sharum hopes to unite the people in his purpose: to create a culture of empathy and art and to create a conversation in Dallas "so the common person feels just as important as the rich person walking down the street."

Advertisement

That's why he started Observe Dallas.

#ObserveDallas2014: photographs placed on the ground from the exact spot they were taken.

"It was a social experiment to see how people would react to being involved in the photo and how Dallas would respond to sudden improvised art," Sharum said. To his surprise, the photos brought strangers together in conversation; the photos were also all gone within a few hours, taken by strangers.

Advertisement

"To me, that's a perfect signal, a big red flag, that these people need something to interact with," Sharum said.

#ObserveDallas2015: large-scale photography blown up and placed on five downtown buildings.

The largest street photography exhibit in Dallas history, #ObserveDallas2015 consisted of simple moments in life such as a homeless man or a father and his son laughing at the park.

"I wanted to do it so that everybody walking downtown could look up at it and say, 'that could have been me.' It took me printing [the photos] off and putting them on the building for other people to see that they were important," Sharum said.

He sacrificed his savings — $85,000 — to create the exhibit in the hopes that the common person would feel equal to the people in the galleries.

One photograph taken by Richard Andrew Sharum on a wall in Downtown Dallas as part of...
One photograph taken by Richard Andrew Sharum on a wall in Downtown Dallas as part of #ObserveDallas2015. (Courtesy Photo / Richard Andrew Sharum)
Advertisement

"It wasn't to make myself famous. It was to give something to Dallas that it had never had before, and maybe inspire somebody else to do it too," Sharum said.

#ObserveDallas2016: The first ever documentary street photography class in Dallas history, according to Sharum. Application deadline is July 20.

Rather than focusing on lighting and other basic photography skills, Sharum will require his students to find a story and put it together in a sequence of images over the course of five days. At the end, it will be displayed at a reception (open to the public August 6 from 7 to 9 p.m. at 500x Gallery). He wants to move photography from the typical wedding poses to stories.

Advertisement

"I have a passion for telling stories and hopefully that passion will spread out like a seed and grow. Hopefully it will inspire a movement of writers and painters and other people too," Sharum said.

Everyone in Dallas has a story, and that's what Sharum wants to Dallas to recognize through #ObserveDallas. That's why he's inviting everyone in the city to document the moments they witness in life, tagging them #ObserveDallas2016.

"If I've inspired one person to go outside of the bounds, I've won."

Well, Sharum did inspire one man: Ramon Ramos, another photographer. Ramos recognized the evident attempt to bring the plight of the homeless to light.

Advertisement

"It really struck me: we pass by them every day in downtown Dallas. It's kind of taboo, you try to avoid them, but they're there. Richard exposes them. He shows their characters. These people actually have lives, and we go about our day by ignoring them."

Inspired, Ramos himself photographed the homeless, paying them $20 to take their picture.

Sharum's actually inspired more than one. 548 Instagram posts tagged #ObserveDallas2015.

Advertisement

Kellie Veach, a street photographer, only wished it could have been bigger. Though it showcased Dallas from the homeless perspective, Veach didn't think enough people cared.

"Artists are taken for granted and not seen as much. I think the culture is rich of artists in Dallas — it's huge. But a lot of people don't pay attention to photography unless it really hits home for them," Veach said.

That's why Sharum wants to inspire everyone: photographers, writers, musicians, artists, and everyone in between.

Advertisement

"It's up to the rebels with pens and cameras to go out and tell those stories or they will never be told," Sharum said. "If you have the power of a pen or of a brushstroke or of a guitar, then utilize that power."