10/19/26

Smile! You’re on Camera


Art
Mae Pirani

Smile! You’re on Camera brings together a selection of phone photographs contributed by friends and artists, foregrounding mobile photography as a ubiquitous art form that moves between casual image-making and a kind of citizen journalism. The project underscores how phones enable a more immediate, unfiltered recording of everyday life and its oddities.

All contributors, whether practicing artists or not, share a sustained commitment to observation, using their devices to notice and collect fleeting moments, often involving strangers. Each participant was invited to select five to ten favorite images from their phone
archive; these were then arranged in a grid format, organized through thematic connections and visual relationships, revealing what each contributor finds visually compelling in their surroundings while also tracing unexpected similarities in how different participants see and
frame the world.

The final collection comprises 18 photographs of strangers captured around the world, including cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, London, and Tangier. The project occupies a space shaped by both observation and surveillance, engaging the ethical complexities of street photography. Its title echoes this tension, suggesting both the casual immediacy of image-making and the subtle unease of being seen without awareness.

Contributing photographers: Minnie Cantor, Mae Pirani, Ava Filan, Ella Gutierrez, Julius Rockzar, John Ledwith, Eloise Maguire, Isaac Trochopoulos, Michael Mychaliska, Maisie McDermid, Paige Garza, Sasha Smithie, Andrew Willms.











Mae Pirani holds a BA in Art History and Urban Design/Architecture from New York University. Her academic and personal interests center on contemporary photography, with a particular focus on the photograph as a “social object” and the ways cultural memory is transmitted through such forms. Professionally, she has worked at New York art institutions including the Amant Foundation, the Grey Art Museum and Luhring Augustine, and currently serves as an arts editor for the arts and literary publication The Weasel.