Capturing our exhibit contributors with his camera, Jacques-Jean Tiziou is a major artistic presence at the new First Person Museum. He has provided portraits for five of the story-tellers and their objects as well as participating in the object selection process and early planning of the museum.

Jacques-Jean, or JJ, has been involved with FPA since 2005 when he won the photo contest associated with our festival. The theme was “lifting the veil” for which he avoided the more literal interpretation and instead submitted this image ( http://tinyurl.com/25azg8e) which depicts the incision in the skin made while removing an ovarian cyst.  In 2007, a friend who was working for FPA encouraged him to sign up as a subject for the “Objects of my affection” video project, where filmmaker and photo archivist John Pettit made a short documentary about his photo archive. http://www.viddler.com/explore/FirstPersonArts/videos/25/ )

When I asked JJ what he hoped would come from the show, he said “I think that there’s tremendous value in listening to our neighbor’s stories. The people on the street aren’t just bags of meat in your way… they’re potential storytellers, dance partners, friends and collaborators. We live in a world where it’s easy to be caught up in celebrity gossip and cultures of competition; in order to fix some of the things that are wrong with our world, we need to foster a culture of collaboration, and work in community. That starts with listening to each other.”

Museums are about telling a meta-story, and so I’ve been asking people what connections they see between the objects. JJ made an interesting observation- that many people have submitted objects that they associate with an important in their life.  He said “I think that to really get to the most interesting stories, these objects need another layer of questions to draw out the particular stories about these individuals that exemplify their impacts… these are the things that other people will most be interested in and able to relate to.”

Placing our everyday objects under a bright light forces our attention. JJ hopes that with that focus we might begin to reevaluate how we assign value to the things in our life. He mentioned the role of story teller that the media plays, often establishing our conventions for us, dictating what is and is not worth noticing or holding value.

JJ wants us to question what the media dictates is important: “Are there things that we are valuing maybe more than we should?” and “Are there other stories that are going untold that maybe we should make an extra effort to seek out? As my friends at the Media Mobilizing Project (http://mediamobilizing.org) like to say, “Movements begin with the telling of untold stories.”

Take a moment to vote for JJ’s amazing project, How Philly Moves. It’s eligible for $50,000!

- Morgan Berman

This week’s featured story from the First Person Museum online gallery is by JJ Tiziou from West Philadelphia. JJ Tiziou is a photographer who claims to have never encountered an un-photogenic person in his life! His images are used both in corporate and editorial contexts as well as arts and activism. He uses his work to celebrate the beautiful people around him who are working to make the world a better place.

Now, JJ is helping us celebrate the stars of the First Person Museum by photographing the people and the objects behind the Museum. See more of JJ’s work at the live exhibit at the Painted Bride Art Center November 5-December 18, or check out his online portfolio here.

Image Archive
Theme: From the Heart
Object Type: Always By My Side

One of the things that is most important to me, and that I most like to share, is my image archive. In this digital age, it has become somewhat of an intangible thing, existing as bits of data on hard drives in multiple locations. I keep backup copies of it off-site, and constantly migrate this data into newer storage mediums. It is a million two-dimensional compositions carved out of the time and space of my life, linking me to countless amazing people and events through the threads of memory. In the end, the objects that store the images themselves are inconsequential- it is the images that are important to me, and even those are only important because of the people in them.

See JJ’s official entry.

Do you have a treasured possession that you’d like to tell us about?

Upload your story to our online gallery at firstpersonmusuem.org

Read our interview of JJ about How Philly Moves.

-Becca Jennings

How do you build a museum of the people? If you’re First Person Arts, you start by bringing together an amazing team of museum specialists well-versed in user generated content, artists skilled in capturing stories from real life and historians from some of the top universities in the country. And then you brainstorm. And throw out questions. And ideas. And more questions. And disagree. And say really great things like, “The object is a vessel for the story.” And share stories about personal objects that matter in our lives. A bunch of really smart people in one room can be both an inspiring and dangerous thing.


Today has been the first day of a two day planning session for the First Person Museum. Spearheaded by museum development consultant Kathleen McLean, we are figuring out the most effective process for capturing the objects, stories and historical contexts that will go into creating the First Person Museum, to be on display at the Painted Bride Art Center in conjunction with the First Person Festival in November thru December 2010.


One of our artistic partners is the popular NPR program Radio Diaries. Radio Diaries will be producing the audio commentary for a selection of the objects submitted for the Museum. Producer Samara Freemark was on hand today voicing her opinions and questions about the project. Hear Samara’s thoughts on the Museum so far.





Our other artistic partners include photographer JJ Tiziou, Inquirer writer Dianna Marder and filmmaker David Kessler. Each will be using their particular medium to capture the personal narratives behind our collection of objects. Tomorrow we meet with the community organizations that will help spearhead object collection throughout the city. We’ll meet them tomorrow!

First Person Salon Presenter JJ Tiziou is making big news in Philly today! His photography of Philly dancers will be the basis for an almost 50,000 square foot mural on the parking decks facing I-95 at the Philadelphia International Airport. How Philly Moves builds off of JJ’s piece in the 2008 Philly Fringe Festival, in which dancers of all ages, experience levels and styles came in for a dance/photo session with JJ. They brought the music and the moves; JJ documented it all in typical JJ style.


On March 5-7, you can dance and possibly become a part of the mural. Anyone can join in! Sign up to participate by February 19th on the How Philly Moves website.





JJ isn’t alone in this massive undertaking. He’s partnered with The City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, Philadelphia International Airport, and the Philadelphia Park Authority.