The Giving Project: After Hours

The Giving Project — documented at: thegivingproject.art⁠ — is the individual release of many, many hundreds on the way to thousands of unique works of art to strangers, the only record of which is a GPS coordinate in combination with date and time and any other information receivers are willing to disclose at that one moment in time.

Begun as my MFA thesis and thesis project for School of Visual Arts, The Giving Project focuses on this nexus between artist and world, particularly in ways in which to make the ephemeral both manifest and personal.

The Giving Project focuses on this nexus between artist and world, particularly in ways in which to make the ephemeral both manifest and personal.

While the website documents in an on-going fashion the interactions at the moment of giving, I have developed relationships of varying intimacy with hundreds of participants; The Giving Project: After Hours is a photobook which seeks to document where some of these relationships have led.

As the title implies, all were taken in the wee or off hours, in-between moments when the vibe is all that matters. These six photos span two and a half years in time and cover places as diverse as lower Manhattan, the remaining rural areas of Monmouth County, and the Napa Valley.

Josh Stein

Josh Stein (b. 1973, Hammonton, New Jersey; currently residing in Napa, California) is a lifelong multi-mode creative artist, musician, writer, professor with multiple advanced degrees from the University of California and the University of Liverpool, adult beverage maker, and current MFA candidate at School of Visual Arts in New York City.