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

What if some of the greatest work of the 20th century was made for no one?

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,

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.

In this episode, I look at what Maier's life says about why we make things:

- the difference between making work and building an audience

- what it means to have an eye with no one watching

- why the habit of seeing might matter more than being seen

It's an uncomfortable question for anyone creating in public today. If no one had seen it, would it still have been great?

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.