500 Faces: Creating a Social History One Person at a Time.
500 Faces: Creating a Social History One Person at a Time
What would you write if someone gave you 100 words and asked:
What is it like to be alive today?
Not what do you do for a living.
Not what are your hobbies?
Not tell me your life story.
Just:
What is it like to be alive today?
That is one of the questions at the heart of photographer and artist Nigel Walker's fascinating project, 500 Faces.
I talked to Nigel about the project in Episode 5 of the Liz Dees Art Podcast, and the more he explained it, the more I realised that this isn't really just a portrait project.
It is an attempt to capture a moment in history.
Why 500?
Nigel began the project after getting his photography studio.
He wanted to photograph people, but he wasn't primarily a portrait photographer, so he needed a reason for people to come into the studio.
That simple practical question developed into something much bigger.
He decided he wanted to photograph 500 people.
Each person gets photographed and is invited to write up to 100 words about what it is like to be alive today.
And Nigel has given himself a deadline.
He will photograph a maximum of 500 people.
If he reaches 500 before the deadline, he stops.
If he hasn't reached 500 by the deadline, he stops anyway.
There is something I really like about that.
A defined number turns an idea into a commitment.
Once you've announced it to the world, you can't quietly decide three months later that you've got bored.
This is bigger than a portrait
The photographs are important.
But so are the words.
And so is the combination of the two.
Every person is given the opportunity to say something about their experience of living now.
That might be personal.
It might be about family.
It might be about health.
Climate change.
Artificial intelligence.
Work.
Politics.
The future.
Or simply their own life.
Nigel doesn't tell people what they should write.
That is important.
If the project is going to become a social history archive, then the voices need to belong to the people being photographed.
What will people think of us in 100 years?
One of my favourite questions from our conversation was this:
What would you want someone in 2126 to understand about the people you've photographed?
That's a hell of a question.
Imagine someone looking at these photographs a hundred years from now.
They won't know these people.
They won't know what their voices sounded like.
They won't know what they worried about on an ordinary Tuesday.
They won't know what made them laugh.
But they will have a photograph.
And they will have 100 words.
Suddenly an ordinary person becomes part of the historical record.
What does a person look like in 2026?
There is another fascinating aspect to the project.
People don't simply look different from each other because of their facial features.
They express themselves through their appearance.
Hair colour.
Glasses.
Jewellery.
Clothing.
Tattoos.
Piercings.
Style.
The visual language of a particular moment in history is written all over people's bodies.
Nigel talked about growing up in a time when there were much stronger social codes around appearance.
You could often make assumptions about someone's occupation or social position from what they were wearing.
A suit and tie.
Factory overalls.
A particular kind of hat.
Those visual rules have changed.
Now you can look at somebody and have very little idea what they do.
And I think that makes a project like 500 Faces even more interesting.
It isn't just recording faces.
It is recording how people present themselves to the world at this particular moment in time.
The themes are already emerging
Nigel has photographed nearly 200 people so far.
And although everyone's contribution is different, he is beginning to see recurring themes.
One of the biggest is the importance of family and friends.
That makes sense.
When the world feels uncertain and there are things happening that we can't control, our relationships can provide a sense of security.
Another recurring theme surprised me.
Optimism.
Despite everything going on in the world, Nigel is finding quite a lot of optimism in what people write.
Not blind optimism.
People aren't pretending everything is wonderful.
They recognise that the world is messy.
But they can still say:
My life is okay.
I'm going to do what I can.
I'm going to keep going.
There is something very human about that.
An archive for the future
The project is intended to become a social history archive, with the collection eventually resting at the Treasure House in Beverley.
And that gives the project a life beyond Nigel.
That matters.
Because ultimately, the photographs aren't really about the photographer.
They're about the people who agreed to step in front of the camera and say:
This is me. This is how I see the world. This is what it feels like to be alive now.
And perhaps that's why the project has stayed with me since our conversation.
Because 500 Faces isn't really 500 portraits.
It's 500 little pieces of evidence that we were here.
And that we had something to say.
You can hear my full conversation with Nigel Walker in Episode 5 of the Liz Dees Art Podcast. Click on the link below to watch the full podcast.
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