Nicky Bird

Nicky Bird’s ‘Question for Seller’ features photographs acquired through eBay that no one else has bid for. The seller is asked the question: “How did you come across the photos and what, if anything, do you know about them?” Their replies, she claimed are as important as the photographs they sell.

Does their presence on a gallery wall give these images an elevated status? 


The status of the images is elevated, although I feel that this elevation is quite temporary. Through an interest in their shared narrative, their status has changed from ‘unwanted’ to the very least, ‘worth viewing’. The images themselves have not become visually more interesting but it is their story that now holds interest. The word ‘unwanted’ can be quite a powerful word in warming the hearts of the general public. The need to make these inanimate objects loved again, although a bizarre concept could quite easily penetrate the human psyche.

I feel that sometime later, however these images will again become someone’s unwanted possessions, returning their status to its original form.

Where does their meaning come from?

The meaning for these images comes from their shared narrative. Without the sellers’ answers, the photographs would hold no meaning; the answers, no matter how small give them meaning. Those with no response still now hold meaning in that lack of response, alongside those that do. In fact, these may become the more notable, as they appear more ‘unwanted’.

When they are sold (again on eBay, via auction direct from the gallery) is their value increased by the fact that they are now ‘art’?

The monetary value of any item or service is exactly what people are willing to pay for it and the value of an item can depend largely on its story; for example, a guitar previously owned by a famous musician is worth far more than the same guitar brand new.

The buyers of the images, post exhibition are not merely buying the images but two stories, that which the seller gave to Bird and their new story of becoming a piece of ‘art’.