touchpaperlit
COLLABORATIVE ART PROJECTS
  • FACE IT TOGETHER
  • 90s SINGLES NIGHT
  • COLLABORATIVE ART
  • ARTISTS

FACE IT TOGETHER

face it together: a feature flip-book

an art project to be continued by anyone, anywhere in any time, to better understand themselves through the impressions others leave on them

face it together is our fourth and biggest collaborative art project, started in Autumn 2018 and cut, stuck and shaped into this version for March 2019.

cut up newspaper and faces arranged for touchpaperlit face it together project front cover

Using whatever digital camera we had to hand, we took pictures of friends, relatives or partners pulling 3 different, recognisable expressions. With paper and scissors, we then mixed partners’ faces to literally see ourselves in each other. Next, we explored the idea of mixed emotions, and particularly how our faces often accurately depict our internal experiential states – except when they don’t.

Read and download your free copy of face it together

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Observation

Humans can be expressive and recognising in body language how individuals are feeling can help us to determine the best course of action in a given moment. 

Sometimes, however, social cues like facial expression and the emotions they imply can be mis-read or not noticed at all. This is likely to happen when there is a mismatch in emotion between the enactor and the perceiver: they couldn’t possibly understand how I feel because they don’t look how I feel.

Theory

We often struggle to see ourselves – ‘good’ and ‘bad’ – in [the eyes of] others.

Question

What if you could see something of yourself in someone else?

Action

Ask pairs of friends, partners and relatives to take pictures of each other pulling 3 distinct faces – here ‘happy’, ‘neutral’ and ‘angry’ – then cut and switch their features to provoke laughter, awareness and conversation.

Share

Use #faceittogether to invite anyone interested in the project to join in the discussion, recreate and even expand upon the exercise.