Anyone can participate! The experience takes no more than 10-15 minutes (based on the preferences of the participant). You can recieve a mailer to send back to me, meet me in person, or attend a larger event with a group. Your contribution will consist of your own handwritten responses to the prompt. What about you is invisible to me? using a sharpie on the edges of an 8 X 10 frame. I will also ask that you take a photo (face not required) with a white or black background. The image will be printed on wide instax film and included/hung inside your frame to be curated alongside all of the other participants. You can also choose to contribute audio to go with your image and frame or just audio alone. The artist/myself will make my own artistic choices about the assemblage of the traveling work, but if you would like to see examples of work that inspires me, check out my Pinterest. I will ask that you sign a consent form granting me permission to use the image publically and to give me ownership of the paper frame and your audio (if you contributed a recording). The collection experience will run throughout October. The collected photos and frames will then be curated by the artist (myself) for an installation piece which will be showcased in The New Frame, as part of the Odyssey Works certificate program project and on display to the public in New York City at Gibney Studios on November 19th, 2023. Details about this event will be updated and can be found at Odyssey Works. At The New Frame a public audience will be able to experience the installation and have the option to contribute their own images, audio and frames. Potentially, they will also listen to recordings of responses to the prompt. The hope is to return the project to the bay area where it can be installed at a museum and grow in the Spring of 2024.

If you would like to know more about community projects, hire me to facilitate a similar project or learn more about the research that supported this project specifically and/or would like academic and other materials to extend dialogues within your community/classroom/education space about invisibility please reach out to me to arrange a 15 minute chat. I am happy to collaborate with you. Thank you community, friends and family. I am extremely grateful for the enthusiastic support of this portrait.

Yay! There are lots of costs associated with this project: The instax film, printer, laminators, various materials, web assistance, backdrop as well as materials for shipping and installation in New York. Hopefully, with your support, the life of the project will extend into 2024 and beyond. You may contribute cash to Venmo @Emily-Hostutler (last four digits 6192). Or, you are welcome to purchase something from this Amazon Wish List. If you would like to be recognized as a contributor to this project publicly at the New Frame (recognition will be printed on transparency paper) and honored on this website and my instagram page (in November), please leave what name you would like to be recognized (either in the Venmo line or in an email (link) to me specially). Including just your photo and image counts as a contribution. Or, monetary/material only contributions are of course welcome. I will not recognize you though, unless I have your explicit permission and request to do so.

ReVisibilty is a collaborative community portrait installation that centers the prompt, What about you is invisible to me? In other words, what is not seen about us/you that impacts how others understand who we/you are? What do we wish others knew about us that we don’t readily reveal or isn’t obvious on first meeting. What kind of things would change people’s assumptions about who we are if we revealed them? Perhaps you interpret this question another way–that is also part of the installation and portraiture making process. Derek Delgaudio, in the film about his performance piece called In and of Itself states that “We are all unreliable narrators of each other’s stories” The intention of this installation is to really digest the truth in Delgaudio’s statement and grapple with what invisibility means for ourselves and also to honor and recognize the complexity and layers for others that don’t feel seen. It is my deepest hope, as the facilitation artist, that participants take away a sense of being part of a beautiful and growing reciprocal art piece that seeks to represent visibility in all its forms. I hope that this sparks meaningful dialogue with others and centers empathy.

Please contact me to coordinate participation. You can also email emhoss@gmail.com, or DM me at my @engagextremecuriosity or my other socials. Currently, I am bringing the project to outdoor events, classrooms and students in the bay area. If you are part of an institution, organization or non-profit that would like to participate as a group during October please let me know as soon as possible. You may also arrange to participate after November 19th when the project returns to the bay. If you are outside of the Sonoma County area, please reach out to me for a mailer.