The origin of The AJA project comes from Shinpei's articipatory photography project "Record of Truth" in the Karen refugee camps of Thailand/Burma borders where he brought darkroom equipments and created a team dedicated to doing a photography workshop with local people. In order to fundraise for the project, Shinpei founded The Aja Project with a co-founder Warren Ogden in 2000 from his living room in Ocean Beach, San Diego while working as a Bicycle taxi driver. Then they coincidentally found out that San Diego receives many refugee populations from all over the world, and started doing photography workshops with afterschool programs for the recent arrivals. He then acted as President, VP of Programs, and as Creative Director, and Creative Advisor until 2017. After a hiatus, he returned as Executive Artistic Director from 2023. Shinpei Takeda is also an established visual artist and filmmaker showing works in many countries such as Mexico, Germany, Japan and USA (www.shinpeitakeda.com). His work is committed to bringing lights to the memories and stories lost in the diaspora. He also directs Ghost Magnet Roach Motel, a noise performance unit from Tijuana, Mexico