A video installation on Central Avenue in downtown Albuquerque. Using our phones we photograph willing subjects and project their digitally altered portraits onto unoccupied buildings.
Our digital manipulation of the photos allows us to give each portrait a kind of narrative arc: as we watch, images emerge out of the darkness and are consumed in light.
The rotating portraits not only create a visually compelling gallery of downtown’s diversity and richness, they invite us to see one another. In this way, the project functions as an antidote to fear. When we are afraid we tend to stop looking, stop making eye contact; we pull back; we look away. This installation encourages looking; it engages people. It nurtures a sense of community in which everyone has a place.
As if we are seeing our faces for the first time.
Our digital manipulation of the photos allows us to give each portrait a kind of narrative arc: as we watch, images emerge out of the darkness and are consumed in light.
The rotating portraits not only create a visually compelling gallery of downtown’s diversity and richness, they invite us to see one another. In this way, the project functions as an antidote to fear. When we are afraid we tend to stop looking, stop making eye contact; we pull back; we look away. This installation encourages looking; it engages people. It nurtures a sense of community in which everyone has a place.
As if we are seeing our faces for the first time.