“Show me what democracy looks like!” The woman’s amplified voice, coming from the podium near the top of the State House steps, greeted marchers from Saturday’s March for Our Future as they turned right off of State Street onto the State House grounds.
The crowd below, primed with this chant on the four-block march from Montpelier City Hall roared back. “This is what democracy looks like!”
At the bottom of the State House lawn, Nancy Diaferio, 57, walked through the crowd, holding a frame of white oak tag. “Young lady,” she asked Olie Grant, 14. “Would you like to be a face of democracy?”
Grant read the frame. The hand-written, cross-hatched block letters across the top said, “This is the face of democracy.” On the left side of the frame, spilling across the bottom, it said, “It looks like you.” A small American flag was taped to the upper left corner. Down the right side it said, “Vote.”
Grant agreed. She ignored the pipecleaner loops that Diaferio had taped to the back of the frame as handles. Instead, Grant’s elegant fingers laced the pink and black letters. Diaferio raised her iPhone 8. The colorful dots in the phone’s case swirled. When she clicked, Diaferio caught Grant in a blink.
“Instagram,” Diaferio told Grant as she strode off to find her next subject. “Look for this on Instagram. Faces of Democracy.”
Diaferio had been planning this project since she attended the Women’s March in New York City last year. She can instantly call up a picture on her phone of a woman holding a similar frame at last year’s march. That frame says, “This is what a feminist looks like.”
“When I saw that sign, I said that I was going to do that for next year’s march,” she says. While the idea stayed in her mind for a year, she only began creating the frame itself the night before. Her goal was to inspire people to get involved in politics, and to vote.
Diaferio walked just a few steps before finding another subject. “Would you like to be the face of democracy?” She asked again and again. Her birthplace in Corona, Queens, a borough of New York City, was evident in her voice. Her 25 years in Vermont was evident in the warmth and length of her conversation with a randomly-encountered acquaintance. She explained the journey from Queens to Manchester, Vt. this way: “I just kept moving north until I wound up here.”
“Would you like to be the face of democracy?” Most people said yes. She photographed moms, dads, grandmas and kids. She photographed many groups of adult women who were compelled to return and march for women again this year, even though the theme in Vermont this time was youth. She photographed people who were protesting the presidency of Donald Trump.
Because of who she asked (she sought out anyone who appeared to be a racial or ethnic minority) and who approached her eager to be photographed (mostly teenagers), the people in her photos are more diverse than the crowd as a whole.
A bright pink anti-Trump poster flapped against Diaferio’s legs as she juggled the frame and her phone. When a man asked to take her photo in the frame in return for his own photo, she made sure the poster was in the shot.
“I want to try to get up to the podium with this,” Diaferio said to her self-described sidekick for the day, Maryjane Sarvis of Shaftsbury. “I’m going to try to get some high value speakers.” Within seconds, Diaferio had left Sarvis behind and was standing behind the speakers’ area.
By simply approaching everyone in the vicinity of the podium, Diaferio did get several photos of speakers. In one frame she captured several of the organizers. If she knew when she had scored a high value portrait, she didn’t show it. She didn’t ask for names. Each face in her photos was as anonymous as a vote. “Look for this on Instagram,” she concluded. “Faces of Democracy.”
The rally ended with another round of “Show me what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like!” Diaferio had already taken over 100 photos, and was still looking for more. With the State House steps almost empty, she turned to the man winding up the cables on the amplifiers. “Young man, would you like to be the face of democracy?” she asked.
“I am the face of democracy,” he replied. He held up Diaferio’s frame, a lock of red hair curling over his shoulder. “It looks like you,” the frame read, and Diaferio snapped the picture.
You can see Nancy Diaferio’s photos here:
https://www.instagram.com/nanniddiaferio/
This article ran on the front page of The Rutland Herald on January 23, 2018. All rights reserved.
