Of the forms of picture making, or the projects that are around today, very few go all the way back to the beginnings of the medium. The sitter survey is one of them. It appeals to that deep desire to gather and collect, to organise and take stock, to assert some kind of order upon a world forever slipping into the past, or into disorder. That is the slightly cold-hearted motivation, but such a survey can also be an occasion for much warmer things: empathy, exchange, collaboration, even community.

Pani Paul and Lola Paprocka have gathered together images of young people they invited to sit at their studio in east London over five years. Friends. Friends of friends. Fashion people. Music people. Artists. Skateboarders. A creative scene, in all its emergent and fragile energy. — David Campany