A decade ago, when Clémence Polès Farhang launched “Passerby,” an online collection of photographs and interviews with women she encountered in public spaces, she assumed the culture would soon evolve so that it would no longer be necessary to focus solely on women’s stories.
“I was naïve in thinking that a project like ‘Passerby’ would be irrelevant and outdated in 2026,” said Ms. Polès Farhang, 36, a photographer. But since misogyny has only become more prominent, she decided to bring her digital archive into a physical gallery space with her first solo exhibition, “Can I Come Over and Take Your Picture?,” a three-day show at Slip House in the East Village of Manhattan. (The exhibition closed on Feb. 18, though an abridged version will be on view into the spring.) There, she displayed portraits and interview excerpts from “Passerby” that she and her collaborators had shared online since 2015.
Many of her more than 300 subjects were women from New York, London, Paris and Los Angeles whom Ms. Polès Farhang noticed in passing and then asked to photograph in their homes. Others were well-known artists like Laurie Simmons and Shirin Neshat.
Ms. Polès Farhang’s portraits “kind of catch you by surprise,” Ms. Simmons said. “There’s a simplicity to them that’s very honest.”
The photograph of Ms. Neshat that appeared in the exhibition features the artist barefoot, perched on the edge of her dining table alongside an arrangement of roses and bamboo. “As photographers, we’re very critical about our own pictures taken by other artists,” said Ms. Neshat, who added that she liked Ms. Polès Farhang’s portrait of her. “She’s a deeply curious person, and has this incredibly sensitive way of looking into other people and their universe.”
Ms. Polès Farhang’s eye for style not only garnered her a cult following, it also earned her assignments fromVogue and corporate clients. Of the 20 framed portraits on display at Slip House, the largest was of Lexii Foxx, a New York-based sex worker, Black trans activist and performance artist, wearing a crocheted bikini top. The frame is just wide enough to capture a copy of the Dalai Lama’s book “The Art of Happiness” in the background.
A wall on the gallery’s third floor exhibited a collage comprising 182 small, unframed prints that Ms. Polès Farhang and a collaborator painstakingly mounted. It revealed a pattern of women reclining on a bed or a couch.
Born in Nice, France, to an Iranian mother and French father, Ms. Polès Farhang grew up an only child in the United Arab Emirates. She was an archivist from childhood, recording journal entries about what she wore, ate and brought to each classmate’s birthday party. After graduating with a master’s degree in marketing from King’s College in London, she became interested in film, which brought her to New York, where she interned for several film production companies. She also started the Female Filmmakers Festival, a screening and talk series that ran from 2018 to 2020.
“Passerby” evolved from an earlier project called “Passerbuys,” in which Ms. Polès Farhang sourced product recommendations from New York women. Over time, though, she became more interested in other dimensions of her subjects’ lives, including their home environments. A self-taught photographer, Ms. Polès Farhang began shooting with digital cameras before taking up film. (She credits the staff at B&H Photo in Manhattan, who explained the intricacies of various lighting setups.)
Though she likes traditional street photography, she explained that her method differs because she relies on the subject’s consent. She has perfected the cold approach, often handing out business cards to women who catch her eye and hoping they follow up.
Lyudmila Koltonyuk, a hairstylist in an East Village salon, received a direct message on Instagram from Ms. Polès Farhang a couple of days after cutting her hair in 2024. Ms. Polès Farhang asked whether Ms. Koltonyuk, then 56, would be willing to be photographed and interviewed in her home.
Ms. Koltonyuk, who was unaware of Ms. Polès Farhang’s work, was surprised. “Are you making a mistake?” she remembered thinking. “What makes me so special that you would want to go out of your way to interview me and take a photo?”
Still, she said yes. When Ms. Polès Farhang arrived at Ms. Koltonyuk’s South Brooklyn home, she photographed her and her CD collection, makeup products and books. They chatted about Ms. Koltonyuk’s taste in music, her experience being a single mother and her early childhood in what is now Ukraine. Later, Ms. Koltonyuk approved the photographs and interview responses before they were published online. (One of her portraits hangs in the photo collage at Slip House.)
“Her work isn’t just being a photographer,” said Nastasia Alberti, the exhibition’s curator. Given the elaborate process involved, “it’s a practice that’s more similar to performance art.”
After the exhibition’s opening reception on Tuesday, Ms. Polès Farhang co-hosted a dinner at Jean’s with Slip House for some of her portrait subjects and friends. As the reception wound down, she approached a reporter, Contax point-and-shoot camera in hand. “Can I take your picture?” she asked.
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