Rami Kashou

Project Runway fans will be jealous: I was mere feet from Rami Kashou, season 4 runner-up. He was in town to speak at The Phillips Collection. The Phillips has a exhibition on right now from Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the "drapers" who were responsible for The Gates in Central Park two years ago. I had been working on the marketing campaign for the event as was excited to see that it was a full-house.

He spoke a bit about his life story, then took questions for 45 minutes or so. The best questions were asked by a few small children in the audience, including things like, "did you feel cheated when you didn't win"? The kids didn't beat around the bush.

I would have liked to hear him speak about how his work related to that of Christo and Jeanne-Claude (thereby tieing it into the exhibition) but I was pleasently surprised to hear him talk about his work and life in relation to the Palestinian occupation. He chose his words carefully, and steered clear of turning the event into a political discussion, but he did touch on the fact that his purpose in life, as he sees it, is to "exist" in spite of the turmoil in the world.