She Never Showed Anyone: Vivian Maier & the Case for Creating Without an Audience

<p>What if some of the greatest work of the 20th century was made for no one?</p><p>For about forty years, Vivian Maier worked as a nanny, most of that time in Chicago. On her days off she walked the streets with a Rolleiflex around her neck and photographed strangers, children,</p><p>shop windows and her own shadow. She took more than 100,000 photographs and showed almost none of them to anyone. Thousands of rolls were never even developed. In 2007, a box of her negatives sold at a Chicago storage auction. Two years later she died, unknown, just before the world started calling her one of the great street photographers.</p><p>In this episode, I look at what Maier's life says about why we make things:</p><p>- the difference between making work and building an audience</p><p>- what it means to have an eye with no one watching</p><p>- why the habit of seeing might matter more than being seen</p><p>It's an uncomfortable question for anyone creating in public today. If no one had seen it, would it still have been great?</p><p>If you're a designer, creator, builder or creative who has ever wondered whether your work counts without likes, followers or a byline, this one's for you.</p>