Artists: Lee Shulman - Omar Victor Diop

Being There is a bold and timely reimagining of 20th-century visual history. Conceived through a vibrant collaboration between British-French artist and filmmaker Lee Shulman—founder of The Anonymous Project, an expansive archive of mid-century amateur color photography—and Senegalese artist Omar Victor Diop, the series places Diop within original vernacular photographs, creating imagined yet believable scenes that invite viewers to reconsider who gets to be seen, remembered, and included.

This US debut is a symbolic homecoming. Many of the original slides were taken in the United States, capturing family rituals, leisure moments, and the texture of daily life from the 1950s through the 1980s. Photography has long played a powerful role in both shaping and reflecting the American dream, especially through images made by everyday people, capturing joy, connection, and aspiration. Shulman’s placing of Diop inside these nostalgic moments expands their meaning with curiosity and grace. Diop doesn’t disrupt these images—he inhabits them, reclaiming space with poise, humor, and imagination.

Rather than critique from a distance, Being There joins the archive in a spirit of play and purpose, offering a warm and generous invitation to reshape history. Blending performance, photography, and archival excavation, the project reshapes the American story quietly but powerfully, underscoring how visibility—especially within the imagery of the everyday—is not just symbolic, but essential to belonging. It speaks to the complexity of the nation’s cultural imagination, honoring its history while questioning who that history has served and who it has left out.

The accompanying film, premiering at Edwynn Houk Gallery, brings these still moments into motion, transforming the archive into a living montage that deepens the series’ invitation to look again, and look closer.