Project Tandem – The Joy Trip Project

Project Tandem – The Joy Trip Project

You might have heard that not everyone agrees when it comes to climate change. While living in New York City, after graduating from college photographer Alan Winslow and journalist Morrigan McCarthy came to realize that across the America people have a difference of opinion.

photo by Meghan Peterson


“Because living in New York City you can kind of feel like you’re in a bubble. Maybe any city is like that,” Morrigan said. “But that everyone around you has the same opinion and is in the same boat, especially when it comes to the environment. You know we should be recycling, we should be taking care of the planet.”
In a community full of liberals Morrigan and Alan believed that everyone would be eager to embrace sustainable practices and a lifestyle to mitigate the damaging effects of climate changes.
“But then we would see these poles and watch the news and it didn’t seem to be that way elsewhere, Morrigan said. “Otherwise every body would just be in the same boat and something would be happening. But we decided to take off and figure out what Americans were actually thinking. And Americans have all sorts of opinions.”
So the two started making plans to travel around the county taking pictures and asking questions. Through their journey, called Project Tandem Alan and Morrigan wanted to connect with everyday Americans across all walks of life to discover what they thought about the planet’s changing climate.
“So basically we decided to do it on bicycle, which almost started by default,” Morrigan said. “My father told me once about a friend he had in college who had biked across the country and we thought oh that’s so cool.”
Alan said it started with biking across the country. “And then we got to talking about it more and we figured how hard could it be to bike around the country and so it would give us the full diversity of America,” he said. “Because if we only went across the country we would only hit a certain thin band of America where we wanted to get as much of the population as we possibly could.”
Traveling just the two of them Alan and Morrigan peddled two bicycles 11,000 miles around the United States. Project Tandem aimed to illustrate the true opinions of the American people and what they truly believe when it comes to protecting the environment.

New music this week by Chad Farran from his album Another Ride. Find more of his work online at www.chadfarran.com.
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