Summer, 2021.
I was slated to be featured in an art show. Per usual, I wanted to do something irreverent, or at least unexpected.
I wondered—instead of hanging prints and sitting quietly as my ego feasted on the compliments of passing strangers—what if I held my own feet to a fire and turned my booth into a working portrait studio?
It was the first time in over a year anyone had really socialized. How do you capture that? Wary strangers, newly out of isolation, face to face, maskless, in a terribly vulnerable and intimate container. Something would happen.
The art would become the moment. Experiential and transient. Like improv, or live music. Little collaborations between myself and perfect strangers.
The blanker the canvas, I thought, the richer the experience. One light. White background. Monochrome. If I wanted to make something interesting, I would have to make something interesting happen.
I called it Human (Re)Connection.
