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Instagram and Dazed celebrate the platform's best #emergingvoices

Lauretta Roberts
01 October 2015

Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom, its newly appointed head of fashion partnerships Eva Chen and Dazed founder Jefferson Hack joined together in London this week to celebrate the platform's most creative #emergingvoices in an exhibition curated by Hack.

#emergingvoices exhibition

Hack who joined Instagram under his own name just last week chose a selection of Instagrammers who had most inspired him for the show, which took place at the Kachette space in Shoreditch on 29 September. After the unveiling of the show Systrom and Chen joined Hack on-stage for a Q&A.

Hack explained that the show contained "a new wave of people using Instagram in a way I haven't seen before". He said he had looked for posters who inspired him with creative imagery. "I'm not interested in a stream of celebrities and selfies," he said. "If I see that on someone's account I think 'I don't know if I want to know you'. It's kind of creepy."

#emergingvoices exhibition

Of his own Instagram debut, he said: "It took me a long time to come out as me." Though he pointed out that Dazed had been posting on the platform since its inception five years ago. "I don't want people to look into my eyes, I want them to look through my eyes," adding that if he and Dazed co-founder, the photographer Rankin, were starting a magazine today they would be "posting straight to Instagram. We'd create an Instazine."

Systrom, who had recently revealed Instagram had hit a landmark of 400m users, said he launched the platform at a point when "the world went from being photography as art to photography as communication". "That meant that you could communicate to millions of people in a second. The ability to span both worlds between the pragmatic and the conceptual: that's what makes Instagram so special today," he said.

#emergingvoices exhibition

Of the recent appointment of former Lucky magazine editor Eva Chen as head of fashion partnerships, Systrom said: "Our values are community first. We have learned a lot by just being close to these groups," and suggested that we could expect to see more such appointments from key Instagram communities in the future.

Chen, who Systrom said had more or less "patented the slow-mo" post (see a recent post from the MSGM show at Milan Fashion Week below), said she viewed Instagram as "an education in fashion these days." Commenting on latest emerging trends she was seeing on the platform, she said: "Slow-mo is definitely becoming a thing on Instagram and things organised neatly always do well. I am seeing fewer selfies and more turning the camera on others, with models posting behind the scenes authentic moments.”

https://instagram.com/p/8I-SmevPbP/?taken-by=evachen212

Systrom added that "meta formats" were the next big thing with posters using the Layout app to create repeated imagery. "We're starting to see repetition within the square, I like that rhythm," he said.

When asked about "competing" social media, such as Snapchat, Systrom replied: "There will always be room for more social media. I am OK with that. We focus on the moments that last, the more beautiful, more creative aspects."

The #emergingvoices exhibition certainly seems to bear out that statement.

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