Waiting Subjects: Social Media–Inspired Self‐Portraits as Gallery Exhibition in<scp>D</scp>elhi,<scp>I</scp>ndia

Abstract

In this article, I reflect on a gallery exhibition of self‐portraits by young S omali refugees. These images were selected from a collection of digital photographs that were shot while producing a collaborative ethnographic film project on the racialization of A frican nationals in D elhi, I ndia. The images that my youthful interlocutors produced while shooting for our collaborative film project, however, were not originally intended for display but were an extension of their already prolific visual and textual self‐documentation on social media. Utilizing select images and texts from the exhibition we culled from this “accidental” photographic archive to evoke what it means for these young S omalis to wait for asylum in E urope or N orth A merica while they make their lives in I ndia, I argue for an attention to the digital image‐making practices of young people as a site where subjectivities are self‐fashioned and ethnographic insights emerge.