We love finding inspiration in the most unique places. Recently, while meandering through a bookstore, we stumbled upon the memoir Double Take by Kevin Michael Connolly. Between the hardcover and within the stiff pages detail the story of his life and how he came about his personal photography project, The Rolling Exhibition, which has gained international acclaim.
Kevin Connolly was born in Helena, Montana in August of 1985. Born without legs, Kevin was otherwise a healthy baby and grew up like any other Montana kid; getting dirty, running in the woods, and getting dirty some more.
In the way developments tend to snowball, Kevin began skateboarding and taking photographs for the first time in 2005. His first taste of living abroad came in 2006 when he left to study in New Zealand for one year. It was on the return home – skating down a backstreet in Vienna – that Kevin took his first prototype photo for what was to become The Rolling Exhibition.
Funded by a second-place finish in the 2006 Winter X Games, Kevin took a skateboard and backpack on a tour around the world to more than seventeen countries including Malaysia, Japan, Ukraine and China. Along the way he captured over 33,000 photographs of people staring at him. The Rolling Exhibition has garnered media attention and has been featured at museums and galleries around the world.
Kevin captured a common expression that transcended across border lines and bodies of water, and that didn’t get lost in translation amongst various languages and cultures. It was through his experiences of capturing the images that make up The Rolling Exhibition that he was able to gain a deeper understanding around the human nature of curiosity and concern, as well as strengthen the core of who he is as a person.
Below are some of the images from The Rolling Exhibition. All images are copyright Kevin Michael Connolly.
More about Kevin and The Rolling Exhibition:
To learn more about Kevin, check out his website Kevin Michael Connolly
To purchase the book Double Take, visit its page on Amazon.
You can also visit The Rolling Exhibition website to see more photos.
And of course, Kevin is on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.
Jess Watson is the CEO & Creative Director of Points North Studio. She's the co-organizer of Baltimore Womxn in Tech, a big believer in Baltimore city, and a pioneer of working remotely while traveling the globe.