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Mirror | Apr 26 2003

For the next week or so, I am guest curator at the Mirror Project. Do you know about the Mirror Project? It’s an online collection of photographs of people photographing themselves in mirrors and other reflective surfaces. The fabulous Heather Champ is behind it, and there are now more than 15,000 images in the collection.

I had known about the project previously and had even contributed a photograph, but it wasn’t until I was selecting images for my little gallery, a task I approached with characteristic obsessionality, staying up until the wee hours several days running, that I realized how amazing it is. People all over the world have photographed themselves for this project. Simply to see this many bathrooms (bathrooms are by far the most popular setting) is staggering.

But it goes deeper than that. Each photograph is a self-portrait. Going from one to the next (I looked at more than 4,000!), I felt moved by so much… selfness. This is me each photograph seemed to say. Here I am.

And here am I, and I, and I. And each I is a me, like I am me. And each I, like me, is asking to be seen.

Heather ChampI would say more, but I’ve already said too much. The Mirror Project is itself a mirror, reflecting back the self who reflects. And so these words say more about me than the project, which I’m not so sure I’ve managed to talk about yet. It’s called the Mirror Project. Heather Champ is behind it. That’s Heather to the right. In a bathroom somewhere in the world. With a camera. Taking a photograph of herself.