By Eriko Kennedy

Have you noticed the “empathy” signs popping up on street poles throughout the area?  There are now more than 500 in the D.C. area. I spoke with the one-man operation behind these signs. This Empathy Project is to encourage all who see his signs to try and understand others’ situations and perspectives. 

He wishes to remain anonymous and mentioned that empathy is different from sympathy. According to Wikipedia, empathy may be defined as “…the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another’s position.”  

He began the project two years ago as a response to the divisiveness in our society. The signs are to remind us to step out of our intellectual silos and to work together and solve interpersonal, local, national, and even global problems. He believes to find solutions we must first “stretch our minds to imagine how and why the other thinks and acts as they do.”  To accomplish this, we must put away our immediate pre-suppositions and stop and listen, to hear and understand one other. We must lead with empathy.

The empathy signs are put up in pairs—one on either side of a pole to represent an empathetic connection between two people. Each pair is the mirror image of the other. No pairs are replicated.  The primary design concept is simple, but the imagery can become complicated. He uses five colors – light blue, white, yellow, orange and red – and each holds significance. Light blue and white are the constants. As the founder describes it, “White represents the self, and blue is for reality or, for those who are religious, God. The other three colors (red, orange, and yellow) represent the other person.”

I believe the thought put into the design of each graphic qualifies it as art. Each time I drive by an empathy sign, or spot a new one, I smile and am reminded there is good in each of us, and sometimes it takes a simple reminder to be a better person, friend, colleague, and neighbor.