Consisting of photographic portraits alongside short interviews, The Human Factor Project came about after Jojo Corvaia opened the doors of his Wynwood art district studio in Miami, Florida and asked passersby if they would like to take part. In this respect Corvaia collaborated with chance; the artist was amazed that only one out of seventy-one people he asked declined. Additionally, this venture took place during Art Basel – Miami’s annual, international art fair – meaning that Corvaia snagged people from all over the world. Such variety only strengthened the artist’s mission to reveal similarities.



All sitters answered the same seven questions before disrobing to be photographed from the shoulders up. This put them in a contemplative state. Corvaia, despite documenting each person in a strait-on and clinical style, captures each subject’s humanity as though it was impossible to hide. This phenomenon of humaneness becomes, via the sheer number of portraits, universal.



One item on the questionnaire asks sitters to write a Statement of Belief. Perhaps the fact that we have easy access to overwhelming amounts of news, information and moral relativity it is a question that needs posing time and again. Consider the revival on National Public Radio of Edward R. Murrow’s 1950’s program This I Believe. Murrow wished the program “to point to the common meeting grounds of beliefs, which is the essence of brotherhood and the floor of our civilization.” NPR’s site says, “In spite of the fear of atomic warfare, increasing consumerism and loss of spiritual values, the essayists on Murrow’s series expressed tremendous hope.” Corvaia’s sitters express tremendous hope too.



Corvaia – an architect as well as an artist – is interested in how we communicate and miscommunicate; in how we feel, in how we both interact with and change space. He is a conceptual artist and does not become attached to a particular medium, using what will best realize ideas. His last large project was a musical using instruments that breathe. His next project will be a complete dining room with porcelain plates made by the artist, images and text fired into their surfaces.



In The Human Factor Project Corvaia has to “keep track of four phenomena, not just the apparent two,” writes Museum of Contemporary Photography director Rod Slemmons with regard to placing words and images in the same perceptual space; “First, the words have accepted, coded meanings and contexts that affect what we see in the adjacent images. Second, the words invoke mental images that might also conflict with what we see. Third, images have meanings and contexts that may alter our engagement with the adjacent words. Fourth, images can call up words in the mind of the viewer. The coordination of image/word/word/image is not easy, but the more difficult it is, the more possibilities present themselves for qualifying or clarifying the larger world.”



Jojo Corvaia coordinates ideas, questions, answers and images with passion and grace. With this exhibit he gives us the permission to belong.





Molly Norris

Independent Curator

Seattle