A pop-up offers and collects free portraits to expand its global archive of the human experience   

 

All of our umbrellas leaned dripping against the door frame. The rain was a hassle, but, this time, it had worked in our favor by keeping the line short. When we arrived at the small Lower East Side studio above a tarot shop on Rivington Street that afternoon, there were only three people ahead of us. 

 

A pale man in a tank top squared his shoulders and blond bob with the camera and looked wistfully up toward the ceiling. Two women sat between Natali and I chattering nervously, one was taking headshots for auditions and her friend was there for moral support — though maybe she’d take a few photos of her own. 

 

 

Self-Portrait Project set-up shop in New York City this month and posted a Tiktok that quickly racked up more than 100,000 views inviting all of the Internet to come get their picture taken for free. Unlimited digital snaps incurred no cost, while printed shots were $10 each. The only catch is that the pop-up gets to keep your photo, too. 

 

★ Watch my Self-Portrait Project TikTok ★

 

By the project’s 16th birthday this March, it had collected more than 1.3 million photos in 25 U.S. cities and 15 countries. Despite the volume, founder Andy Lin refers to himself as the “Laziest Photographer In the World” since self-portraits don’t require much effort on his part. (Both times I’ve participated in the project, he’s been nowhere to be found.) Lin is a travel photographer with a heart for hard stories: he’s taken the project to Palestine and Mozayik, Haiti and quotes Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh on his website. 

 

“Continue until you see yourself in the cruelest person on Earth, in the child starving, in the political prisoner. Practice until you recognize yourself in everyone in the supermarket, on the street corner, in a concentration camp, on a leaf, in a dewdrop. Meditate until you see yourself in a speck of dust in a distant galaxy. See and listen with the whole of your being.” It’s a lion-hearted task to stare at your own reflection while other people are watching. With the advent of smartphones you’d think we take enough photos to know what to do, but self-portraiture — like meditation — requires a particular kind of focus.

 

Before our turn, we’d heard the same speech given to the other two ladies by the attendants — hold the clicker, look in the mirror, snap as many times as you want — but it was hard not to feel self-conscious and uninspired against the backdrop. The walls are covered in a grid of portrait subjects past, so I tried to mine their poses for inspiration.

 

 

Smiling on my own felt boring while relaxing long enough to make a straight face evoked a hostage vibe especially since the shots are all in black and white. I asked Natali to tell me a joke to get me laughing and my friend of more than 10 years confessed that she does not know any. Instead, I found my stride by spinning while seated on the stool and saying “whee” like an overgrown 2nd grader. There would be no grave-faced, Malcolm X-style book jacket portrait for me. 

 

It was easier to take pictures as a duo than it was to do so alone. With Natali in the frame, we could pull off looks together: fish faces, heart hand emojis, and action shots of Kid and Play’s eponymous dance from the 1990 film House Party. Unless you have experience or total comfort as a model, it’s a good idea to bring a hat, a feather boa, your favorite song, or an adorable friend whose schedule matches yours. 

 

At the printing station, the attendant with cargo pants and a buzz cut clicked through each photo for participants to choose their prints. (You receive a digital copy of every photo you take; the program uses facial recognition to text you when you’ve been “spotted” at a photo booth.) At $10 each, the only limit on the number of prints is your own budget.  

 

 

Lin’s intention for the project is “to serve as a vehicle through which the zeitgeist is captured by those who inspire and occupy it, and to build a living archive based on a foundation of empowerment, quality, and community”. Lofty. After we selected our prints the attendant sealed them with a sticker and invited us to the closing reception where one photo from everyone who came to the pop-up would be on display. I marked the date on my calendar. 

 

Outside, managing the rain, our umbrellas, and the prints, we snapped a final photo on our phones. In the background, the tarot shop awning displayed a card called The World. On it a woman floats inside of a laurel wreath. Her partially clothed body faces the future, while her face looks behind her to the past, representing the successful completion of one journey and the beginning of the next. She could put down one of the batons she carries in each hand and hold onto the clicker; it would be a good day for her to snap a self-portrait.      

 

blacklove 🖤 and starlight 🌟 

 

Self-Portrait Project is a participatory art concept that began in Brooklyn in 2009. To participate, you can find a mirror on the SPP website, stay tuned for future pop-ups, or book the project for a private event or activation. You can access selections from the archive on their Instagram profile. The Lower East Side pop-up was open from August 7 to August 28, with a closing reception featuring selected portraits from the installation.  

 

★ Watch my Self-Portrait Project TikTok ★