The 20 Friends I Wish I had

Who do you wish you could be friends with? Would they be activists, artists, politicians, comedians? For the 20 Friends Project, twenty social network identities have been created for the twenty people I wish I had as friends.

The 20 Friends Project, uses icons from pop culture, as well as slightly more obscure references ranging from the Queen of England to Mr. T. Each identity is constructed online on the social network site Facebook. Each identity has a corresponding painting that employs the iconic aesthetic of Facebook and converges this with the nostalgia of Victorian Wedgewood Silhouettes.

This project examines how we represent friends and identity both as a visual thing and a social construct. By using memory keepsakes within visual culture history and technology, The 20 Friends Project attempts to draw parallels between Victorian Silhouettes, 4th century Greek and Roman Keepsake lockets, wedgewood and the branding of Facebook.

This project uses both material form and digital social relationships that allows viewer to not only see, but also engage with the identity online. Each online identity has a different anonymous svengali taking on the identity for a month at a time building a growing network of social relationships, and making apparent the duplicitous nature of online identity.

In Fall of 2010, the 20 Friends lived in Grand rapids at the Women's City Club during Artprize.