Taking place alongside Strike a Pose! 100 Years of the Photobooth, currently on view at the Gallery, we discuss the photobooth as a social and historical object — from its early adoption for official identification to its later embrace by artists, subcultures and popular culture. 

Drawing on extensive archival research and personal collections, Nakki Goranin and Raynal Pellicer explore how photobooth images have circulated across private, institutional and public contexts, and what they reveal about changing ideas of identity, visibility and self-representation over time.

This event coincides with Strike a Pose! 100 Years of the Photobooth, featuring work from the collection of Raynal Pellicer and is part of a year-long programme of centenary celebrations, in partnership with AUTOFOTO. 

Details on how to access the event will be confirmed upon registration. Please check your junk folders if you haven't received an email from the Gallery.

Biographies

Näkki Goranin is a photographer, visual artist and writer living in Burlington , Vermont. She is the author of American Photobooth (WW Norton) and the subject of the recent book, Behind the Curtain, The Art and Photobooth Collection of Näkki Goranin (Connecticut College) She has written numerous articles for magazines and book publications, the most recent being the French publication, 9 Lives. 

Goranin's artwork and some of her Photobooth collections have appeared in films, such as, The Wizard of Lonliness (US), If You Coul Read My Mind (Canada) and Good Hair (US), Näkki has a Masters degree in Fine Arts Photography, Folklore and Anthropology from Indiana University. She has been a Vermont Artist-in-Residence for 10 years, as well as being a viewing Professor at a variety of colleges. 

She has been interviewed for the Smithsonian Magazine, Geo, People Magazine as well as the New York Times, which also filmed her for a video which is available on their website. She recently had a gallery show at the Center for Photography in Woodstock (New York). Her photobooth art is in the permanent collection of the International Center for Photography in New York City. Näkki is currently a consultant for an American/ British documentary film on photohistory. She is currently finishing a book on historical Photobooth images , as well as a book on tintypes (ferrotypes).

Raynal Pellicer is a writer and filmmaker whose collection is featured in the Strike a Pose! 100 Years of the Photobooth exhibition at The Photographers Gallery, London, running until February 22, 2026. He is the author of Photobooth: The Art of the Automatic Portrait.  

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