“happy birthday” bridges the gap between identity and artifice in the millennial social landscape. at first, it sheds a stark white light on some of the many tactics that exist for putting on a particular persona, be it literal or digital. it exposes the melancholia in the everyday practice of putting on a face, composing a tweet, forcing an expression. primal feelings and experiences are pared down and filtered until all intimacy and warmth have been leeched out, leaving something neatly presentable if stunted and awkward. but then, the extremes of individually expressed artifice are tested, and what ensues is a transformation from black and white, binary and bored, to a bright and glittering vision of authenticity. amidst breathless delirium, a new sensibility of performative self-devotion gives birth to genuine human spirit.

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photos by bree birr