Taking note: After sharing 20,000+ letters, the writing is clear; everyone’s carrying a burden   

Turning his own healing journey into a series of universal messages that could be folded and tucked inside an envelope, Kasim Hardaway clips the power of encouraging words for Kansas Citians who might not even know they need them.

Until it’s time to take a look.

Members of the public select letters to pull from Kasim Hardaway’s Take What You Need interactive installation at City Market; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News

After working through mental health challenges in early 2025, Hardaway left his career as a marketing strategist and social media influencer to embark on a new creative pivot. He developed Take What You Need, a public, interactive installation of 40 different letters that he wrote — labeled with phrases like “to the one who doubts their own worth” or “to the one who needs to let go” — inviting passersby to choose the letter that speaks best to them at that moment in their lives.

“It’s creating space for people to just slow down, reflect, and hopefully find words of affirmation for whatever they’re dealing with behind closed doors,” the Kansas City creative explained.

Since its debut in 2025, Hardaway estimates he’s already printed more than 20,000 letters — exhausting one printer already — all inspired by the journaling he did to process his own emotions while healing after his breakdown.

“‘To the one who holds everyone else together’ is by far the most popular letter,” he noted. “I always print them in sets, but that’s the first one to go, and there really isn’t a close second. I would say a lot of people feel like they have to hold it together for everyone else, so that’s very telling.”

The installation has appeared at festivals, conferences, universities, cafes, and public spaces across the region. It joins the Celebrate AMERI’KANA Music and Arts Festival Saturday, Aug. 1 at Concourse Park, an annual celebration of Black, Indigenous, Latino, and immigrant artists, musicians, makers, and communities.

From the archives: Federal arts funding cuts hit AMERI’KANA festival in KC’s northeast; organizer says the show will go on

“A lot of people are yearning for connection, but also just to be seen in whatever they’re dealing with,” Hardaway said. “I feel like we live in such weird times where you feel so connected to people through your phone, through social media, being able to text someone, call someone; but at the same time, we’re also so disconnected from each other.”

“Just being in a crowd, reflecting in your own individual space, but being part of a collective, I think that’s really powerful,” he added. “We’re all human — and while we may look different — we most often deal with the same types of things behind closed doors.”

Hardaway most recently set up Take What You Need at City Market — where it first debuted a year ago — after a brief run within the City of Entrepreneurs marketplace during the FIFA World Cup at Union Station.

“I felt affirmed about the project prior to the City of Entrepreneurs,” Hardaway said. “But I think that was the testing ground of how people outside of America react to this and it was very well received. I probably went through 7,000 or 8,000 letters.”

“It just shows that it’s needed,” he added. “There are a lot of people that may have certain emotions and feelings, but may not have the right words to articulate it, or move past it, or start to deal with and process it.”

Kasim Hardaway hangs new letters, replacing envelopes already taken his Take What You Need interactive installation at City Market; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News

After experiencing a lack of self-worth and a lifetime of feeling that he needed to be exceptional to feel loved — especially in the high-pressure world of social media and marketing — Hardaway said it all came crashing down almost two years ago. So he quit his job and committed to therapy, reflecting through journaling, and opening up to people about what he was going through.

“I’m just like, ‘Why don’t we talk about this more regularly?’” he explained. “I feel like it shouldn’t have to come to a point where someone has broken down for it to be a topic of conversation.”

From the experience, Hardaway also was inspired to create his debut experimental film “The UNBecoming.” Both projects reflect his mission to create art that reminds people they are not alone in what they carry, he noted.

While it’s always important for people to feel like there’s hope and light at the end of the tunnel, Hardaway, it’s more resonant now.

“The world feels like it’s going to shit in a lot of ways,” he explained. “You turn here, you turn there, and here’s something: political division, climate change, racism, bigotry. There’s just so much, and it’s incessant because we are attached to our phones and media. It just feels like we’re being pummeled with negativity or just this darkness or this dread. It feels omnipresent like you can’t escape it.”

“We all just need a little bit of positivity.”