REPOST: The Disposable Photo Project — September 2017-May 2019

Repost is a conceptual photography experiment exploring the intricacies and universal commonalities of everyday life. Visual colloquialisms gathered through a similarly vernacular medium­­­­­­­-the disposable camera-tell the stories of our current moment, how we live, what is unique, and what we share. At a time when our day-to-day has become inextricably linked with technology, this project centers around a break from our fast-paced world, encouraging a slower, more intentional approach to image-taking and memory-making. Repost is a return to presentness.

Curators Lindsey Bell and Celina Wu gather and build a collection of these moments by passing cameras onto peers, who then capture the instances that stand out to them. Each individual who receives a camera continues the chain, passing it on to their peers, and so on and so forth until the camera is fully exposed. Once the camera’s 27 exposures are taken, the last person in possession of the camera returns it in the provided pre-stamped envelope. This chain of passage and the return of the camera are the only stipulations of the project. Otherwise, each participant has full interpretive control in regard to content and quantity of exposures. The resulting images are displayed at pop-up exhibitions in their entirety - unedited and uncensored.

A recent iteration of this project included commissioning text for a web-based exhibition of photos sent to participants through the mail.