Click on this link open world smiles for the full story of this project.  The project grew from an Open World hosting experience which partnered a guest from Russia (with a photographic/journalistic background) with a local member, Greg Iger, who is a highly respected local photographer in Bakersfield California. They both were surprised to find their preconceptions of the grim capitalist and grim communist were false. 

They wished for a way to let others discover this for themselves as well.  Being photographers, they came up with a plan involving photos of smiles gathered in Russia and USA.  With no coordination of images ahead of time, the photos "matched" easily.  In fact, the exhibition curator in Russia was led to exclaim that she had found her twin in the USA.  This project "shows" that we are all alike in so many ways! 

Thank you to Open World and Friendship Force for bringing Greg Iger and Dina Baykova together, and to Greg and Dina for collaborating on this excellent collection of SMILES.  Just in case you missed the link, here it is again.