Intimate Archives: Miniatures, Migration and Digital Portraiture

Taking inspiration from the smartphone SIM card – a tiny device that connects us across the globe – The SIM Project explores how the mobility and intimacy of smartphone photographs record and amplify the relationships, creativity and identities shaped by migration.

The research builds on eight years of co-designed workshops with displaced communities that have created a collective archive of SIM-scale artworks. The project is led by artist and anthropologist Liz Hingley and evolved through her King's Culture residency in the Department of Digital Humanities (2020-22).

Combining visual and digital methods, The SIM Project examines the photographs we carry in our phones and share through local and global networks as personal digital archives. Initial workshops at Kings invited participants to select images held on their phones that give them a sense of belonging and print them onto 0.7mm glass to create SIM card-scale pendants.

The Waymarkers exhibition in the Curiosity Cabinet on the Strand (April-Dec 2025) presents the full archive of smartphone photographic prints in multiple formats and scales created in workshops across eight countries—from Cyprus to Finland, the USA and the UK. Over 1,000 chosen images and participant portraits form illuminated mosaics, while miniature SIM-scale prints can be glimpsed expanded on the wall inside through a peephole projection. In the adjacent window, pendants hang from a shimmering silver shawl inspired by the Portland Global Friendship Group (PGFG).

As part of the generative activities around the exhibition, King’s Centre for Philosophy and the Visual Arts supported a workshop with the National Portrait Gallery in August 2025. Young people with roots around the world joined the gallery curators to explore the collection of miniature paintings and photographic treasures. Magnifying them under microscopes and bringing stories embedded within to life, participants uncovered their roles in friendship, love, patronage, and international diplomacy. They were then invited to make personal portrait miniatures from digital photos held on their smartphones: one to keep, and one to add to The SIM Project touring collection.

As in the earlier workshops, the National Portrait Gallery participants used a 3D printed camera to optically transfer a chosen portrait from their screen onto a glass plate. They then developed it into a SIM-scale print using the project's portable photographic darkroom, echoing the miniature photographs in the National Portrait Gallery Collections.

This act of scaling renders the image tactile, translating intangible, emotionally charged data while disrupting dominant technological structures and archival hierarchies. The young people commented that attending to the fine details of their images evoked unexpected feelings of care and connection.

The dried glass plates were then enlarged onto a perspex window using an analogue projector to reveal unique physical imperfections created by the contours of the hand-painted emulsion on the surface of the glass. The glitches blurred the digital filters of the image, while the projection created an ephemeral presence, mirroring the way digital pictures are shared, consumed, and then vanish into our deep archives.

One by one, the group had under a minute to trace over their image, creating a collective drawing with elements of every portrait on one sheet of paper. The whirr of the fan and the click of the motor as the carousel alternated between the portraits created a unique soundscape of motion in the darkened room. Moments of pause were caused by disruptions in the rotation due to overheating of the machine. The group remarked that the painstaking analogue process created moments for quiet reflection, laughter, and shared discovery.

In the final stage of the workshop, each group member received a metal frame to hold their precious glass print and hand-stamped a backplate with a meaningful number. This stamp mirrors the International Identification Number inscribed on the back of every SIM card. A traditional photography studio was then set up to make portraits of everyone wearing their crafted pendants, which marked the conclusion of the workshop.

The SIM Project interrogates how moving between media and scales of representation generates distinct intellectual and bodily engagements. By inviting young people to interpret the National Portrait Gallery collections and situate smartphone photographs within the global history of miniature representation and circulation, the project fosters new modes of seeing, relating and imagining.

Participants from the first workshop will become project consultants and co-facilitate future miniature making sessions at the National Portrait Gallery. The research aims to further investigate the ways smartphone photography can contribute to a sense of belonging, agency, and personal growth for young people who have experienced displacement.

During the workshop, participants traced connections on a borderless world map linking London to someone they communicate with via smartphone. These coordinates have been integrated into an interactive digital map with those drawn in previous workshops on the website. Access the map here.

The collective archive of personal images, curated by underrepresented audiences, contributes to ongoing discussions of counter-imperial archiving and participatory knowledge production in migration studies.

Waymakers is currently on display in the Curiosity Cabinet on the Strand until 3 December and was selected as the King's College London pavilion for the 2025 London Design Biennale.

The workshops were kindly supported by the Centre for Philosophy and Art, King’s College London, Counterpoints Arts and West London Welcome. Special thanks go to curators Clare Freestone, Charlotte Bolland and Catherine MacLeod for their time and generosity, and Frank Menger and Egemen Kiziclan for their teamwork.