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May 14, 2026
Analyzed by GPT OSS 120B

Es Devlin’s selfie‑driven national portrait aims to unite a fragmented Britain

AI Summary
Es Devlin, in partnership with Google Arts & Culture Lab, has launched a living portrait at the National Portrait Gallery that stitches together thousands of UK selfies. The project seeks to foster a moment of shared attention amid growing social division.

Es Devlin’s collective selfie portrait challenges Britain’s fragmentation

At the National Portrait Gallery, artist Es Devlin presents a constantly evolving digital collage built from ordinary people’s selfies. The work is framed as a quiet, non‑verbal invitation for the nation to coexist.

How the living portrait merges thousands of UK selfies

  • Participants upload a selfie via the project website.
  • Each image is rendered in Devlin’s smoky charcoal‑and‑chalk style.
  • The stylised portraits rotate on a framed screen, appearing and fading in a perpetual carousel.

The installation deliberately leaves imperfections – mismatched beards, overlapping features – to reflect the difficulty of seamless unity.

Technology behind the portrait: Google Arts & Culture Lab’s AI model

Working with engineers at Google Arts & Culture Lab, Devlin trained an image‑generation model on her hand‑drawn portraits. The AI translates raw selfies into drawings that retain the tactile feel of charcoal, rather than a simple filter.

While the project showcases AI’s creative potential, Devlin acknowledges the paradox of offering her artistic “shadow” to a corporate tech platform amid broader debates over artists’ rights.

Why a crowd‑sourced portrait matters for British social cohesion

The timing is significant: Britain is experiencing heightened political fury, algorithmic echo chambers, and loneliness. By foregrounding ordinary faces, the work challenges the dominance of celebrity and political imagery in national narratives.

Devlin hopes the fleeting intimacy of a shared glance can prompt a pause in the “age of destruction, fragmentation, separation, isolation” she describes.

Future steps: workshops, regional roll‑outs and the debate over AI in art

Beyond the gallery, Devlin will run free portrait‑drawing workshops and online classes, with plans to bring the installation to town halls, libraries and schools across the UK.

The project also sparks discussion about the role of AI in cultural production – whether it is a tool of industrial capitalism or a means of artistic re‑appropriation.