The following is my artist statement for onemillionedits.art
I keep coming back to what it means to be part of something other people can change. I mostly think of this in relation to communities and social interactions, but a shared canvas becomes an interesting way to explore that. You can claim a space, put something of yourself into it, and feel attached to what you’ve made there. It can feel like home. Someone else might relate to that and want to build on it, or see it as a place for something they want to do differently.
As a photographer there’s something compelling to me about taking a moment from an ongoing situation and permanently locking it. As viewers of photographs we rarely know what happened before or after, and have to imagine how those stories unfolded. We know the images are ephemeral. I’ve explored this idea of change and permanence in my work before, and it’s something I keep returning to.
With One Million Edits, the cost of each edit adds friction to the creation. It gives the decisions weight. As the friction increases, the meaning of a decision can change. A gesture someone barely thinks about early on might later require a commitment they (or others) have to weigh carefully. I’m curious about when people decide something matters enough to spend more on it, and how invested they become in keeping it there.
There’s an uncertainty around that investment. Getting involved early leaves your contribution exposed to everyone who comes after you. Waiting gives you more knowledge of what’s happening, but less freedom to act cheaply. Protecting something can make it harder to change, while also bringing closer the moment when change becomes impossible.
That tension, the approaching permanence is what grabs me. People are making decisions alongside strangers, with different intentions and different ideas about what deserves to remain. Eventually they have to live with an outcome that none of them could have made alone.
I want there to be a final image, but I’m much more interested in how the participants get there. What they feel is worth adding, what they become attached to, what they’re willing to let go. I hope the work holds some trace of how we shared the space, including the things we couldn’t agree on.
-Sean Bonner, October 2026