JORDI BERNADÓ. ID Project

Jimmy Wales
Co-founder of Wikipedia
Huntsville, USA, 1966
Chose the London Library, London, UK, 2015

Jimmy Wales, who attempted to fence the void that resides in everything important, chose to have his portrait taken at The London Library in London.

Gao Xingjian
Nobel Prize for Literature
Ganzhou, China, 1940
Chose the Palais-Royal, Paris, France, 2016

To Gao Xingjian, Paris is synonymous with freedom. Perhaps that is why he decided to have his portrait taken in the grounds of the Palais-Royal, with the Comédie Française behind him.

Rosario Quispe
Indigenous community leader
Jujuy, Argentina, 1968
Chose Salinas Grandes, Jujuy, Argentina, 2017

Rosario Quispe chose to have her portrait taken in a place without which we could understand neither herself nor her struggle, which is why she is in Salinas Grandes, Jujuy, Argentina.

Nada Al-Ahdal
Human rights activist
Zabid, Yemen, 2002
Chose Amman, Jordan, 2019

Dressed as a bride to represent lost childhood, Nada al-Ahdal chose to have her portrait taken in Amman, Jordan, the city where she found shelter after being forced to flee from Yemen.

Gretchen Cara Daily
Bilogist
Washington D.C, USA, 1964
Chose a ceiba, Sabalito, Costa Rica, 2019

Gretchen Cara Daily chose to have her portrait taken standing before “La Ceiba”, a unique tree in the village of Sabalito, Costa Rica, a country with which she has close ties. The people of Sabalito say that this tree symbolises all that nature provides for humanity, that it is a portal that looks into the past and links it to the present and the future. A tree, this tree, any tree, can perhaps awaken in us the deepest understanding of how intimately we depend on nature.

Stephen Hawking
Cientist
Oxford, UK. 1942-2018
Chose the Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge, UK, 2018

Stephen Hawking chose the Centre for Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge as the site of his portrait (which turned out to be the last photo taken of him in life). However, the careful observer will notice something else in the shot. Just before it was taken, the overcast sky opened up and the moon appeared in the lefthand corner of the frame. So we might say that this is a portrait of Stephen Hawking looking at the moon.

Muhammad Yunus
Nobel Peace Prize
Chittagong, Bangladesh, 1940
Chose the Yunus Centre, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2019

Muhammad Yunus chose the Yunus Centre, on the 16th floor of the Grameen Bank in Dhaka, Bangladesh, as the site of his portrait. The sitting took place in the meeting room and before the shot Yunus asked only to take off his shoes.

Steven Pinker
Cognitive psychologist
Montreal, Canada. 1954
Chose the William James Hall, Harvard, USA, 2019

Steven Pinker chose to be photographed at the entrance to the William James Building at Harvard University, where he teaches and pursues part of his research work.

Vivian Gornick
Writer
New York, USA, 1935
Chose the Building on the corner of 7th East / 12thSt. New York, USA, 2018

Vivian Gornick chose to have her portrait taken outside the house where she lives and writes – though perhaps they are one and the same thing – all the while looking out of the window at the city she loves, New York.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Writer
Enugu, Nigeria, 1977
Chose Freedom Park, Lagos, Nigeria, 2017

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie chose to have her portrait taken in Freedom Park in Lagos, the city where she lives. The park once housed a prison, Her Majesty’s Broad Street Prison. It is now a constant reminder of what must never happen again.

Ferran Adrià
Chef
L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Spain, 1962
Chose Cala Montjoi, Girona, Spain, 2016

Ferran Adrià chose to be portrayed at Cala Montjoi, the cove in Roses where, armed with intuition and perseverance, he revolutionised world cuisine at elBulli.

Pedro Opeka
Missionary
San Martín, Argentina, 1948
Chose Akamasoa, Antananarivo, Madagascar, 2019

Pedro Opeka decided to be portrayed in Akamasoa, in the outskirts of Antananarivo, Madagascar.

Woody Allen
Film director
New York, USA, 1935
Chose the Metropolitan Museum, New York, USA, 2015

Asked “What is your place in the world?”, Woody Allen found it difficult to decide between Paris and New York. Finally, however, the balance was tipped for the latter in this battle for his affections between his passion for Europe and his love for what is, to put it rather grandiloquently, the city of his life: New York. From the whole city, Allen decided to have his photo taken at the Metropolitan Museum and, as chance would have it, the spot where he finally chose to stand was before The Triumph of Marius, a painting by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.

Reed Brody
Lawyer
New York, USA, 1953
Chose New York, USA, 2018

Reed Brody chose to have his portrait taken at the entrance to the Brooklyn apartment block where he lived throughout his childhood, and where he had not returned until the day of the shoot. As well as a “dictator hunter”, Reed Brody is also known as the man with the red scarf. No matter what situation he finds himself in, he always wears one around his neck. In this portrait too. It’s just a matter of looking closely, of getting a little closer, and – as with most things in life – it suddenly appears.