East Village, New York
Clémence Polès Farhang
Can I Come Over and Take Your Picture?
Slip HouseFor the past decade, Franco-Iranian photographer Clémence Polès Farhang has approached women she encounters by chance—on public transit, sidewalks, in cafés—and asked a simple, direct question: Can I Come Over and Take Your Picture? This gesture of radical attention is the starting point of Passerby, an ongoing photographic and oral archive that has documented more than 300 women across New York, London, Paris, Los Angeles, and beyond since 2015. In the comfort and privacy of their homes, Polès Farhang photographs her subjects and conducts extended interviews, asking about morning routines, childhood memories, relationships, beauty rituals, favorite books, and the narratives they tell about themselves. The project refuses extraction in favor of sustained attention: each portrait emerges from hours spent listening, looking, and allowing unsaid truths to surface. The presentation brings together portraits shot on film from this decade-long project, exploring what it means for women to be seen and heard on their own terms. It offers an alternative gaze—one rooted in tenderness, curiosity, and the conviction that every woman's interior life deserves deep attention. The photographs on view refuse the anonymous, often predatory gaze of street photography. Each portrait is shaped by conversation, negotiated access, and the crossing of a threshold—from public to private space, from stranger to participant. The domestic interiors are not mere backdrops but active participants in the portraits, revealing how women construct meaning and selfhood through the spaces they inhabit. Raised between France and the United Arab Emirates, Polès Farhang brings a diasporic sensibility to her work. Passerby documents women across axes of class, race, nationality, and circumstance—revealing not a single story of womanhood, but the quiet architectures of survival, resilience, and daily life that each woman builds from the conditions available to her. Featured Portraits: Hiba Abid, Folasade Adeoso, Susan Alexandra, Nasim Alikhani, Erin Allweiss, Niat Amare, Mari Andrew, Janelle Anne, Alaa Balkhy, Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter, Donna Baxter, Nadia Bedzhanova, Miyako Bellizzi, Zahra Bennani, Camille Bertrand, Anita Bertolini, Zoe Beyer, Tina Bhojwani, Berna Bilgin, Dana Bodourov, Mahen Bonneti, Rebecca Boorstin, Laura Brown, Rachel Cabitt, Marjon Carlos, Carolina Santos, Lauren Caruso, Virginia Chang, Dianna Cohen, Christina Coleman, Nina Lorez Collins, Adette Contreras, Alyssa Coscarelli, Lexi Cunningham, Chloe Dewberry, Sabrina Diaz, Emily DiDonato, Huong Dodinh, Sybil Domond, Sarah Eaton, Yousra Elbagir, Charlotte Lindèn Ercoli, Allison Escoto, Holly Falcone, Leah Faria, Cara Flaherty, Melissa Flashman, Olivia Fleming, Sara Flowers, Rian Fossett, Lexii Foxx, Naomi Fry, Connie Gao, Kristi Garced, Beth Garrabrant, Katie Garcia, Kelsey Garcia, Pamela Garavano-Coolbaugh, Sam Giordano, Eva Goichochea, Zan Goodman, Maria Gonzalez, Hallie Gould, Eden Grinshpan, Nat Guevara, Josephine Hack, Tea Hacic-Vlahovic, Sara Haile, Leslie Hamilton, Gisue Hariri, Laura Helms, Gabrielle Herbst, Kimberley Ho, Rachel Howe, Charlotte Hundley, Jasmine Imani, Momo Ishiguro, Ellis Jones, Fatima Jones, Mina Juhn, Heba Kadry, Beata Kanter, Atafeh Karimi, Naura Keiser, Sarah Kinlaw, Domino Kirke, Lyudmila Koltonyuk, Steph Krasnoff, Ana Kraš Clémence Polès Farhang (b. 1989; Nice, France) is a Franco-Iranian photographer based in New York City. Raised in Sharjah and Dubai, her work focuses on identity, memory, and cultural exchange, often through the everyday lives of women. She founded passerby in 2015 as a long-term portrait and oral history project. Her work has appeared in Vogue, Mother Tongue, Far–Near, Acacia, and Anyone Girl.