If you’re in search of lesser-shared images by the likes of Nan Goldin, Mark Borthwick and Boris Mikhailov, alongside archive pages torn from Dazed and The Face, it’s about time you followed @m__a__p.
An acronym for “media, art and people”, the account was founded by photographer Christina Trins and started as something of an organisation exercise. “I’m an image fanatic, I have so many photos that I like but they get lost in the gallery on my phone, so I decided to systemise everything via @m__a__p,” she explains.
Trins aims to share imagery that people may not have seen – or perhaps not fully noticed – before to give them that satisfying feeling of discovering something new: whether that’s something she’s found on tumblr, a screengrab from a film, or a series of scans from an archive magazine from her personal collection. “You’ll see that most of my images are from 90s,” Trin continues. “I’m personally attracted to this period. I think it’s one of the most saturated periods in so many spheres of life from fashion, art and music, to politics. Not just in the post-Soviet space, but for the rest of the world too.”
Trins is also fascinated by film photography, the imagery of Corinne Day, Nan Goldin, Davide Sorrenti, Juergen Teller and Mark Borthwick, and fashion by Helmut Lang and Jil Sander. But when it comes to the archive moment that’s stuck with her since her early encounters with fashion, it’s Alexander McQueen’s SS99 show – inspired by a Rebecca Horn installation – that saw Shalom Harlow stand on a revolving platform while two robotic arms sprayed her white tulle dress with yellow and black cans of paint.
If @m__a__p were a person, though, it wouldn’t be a designer. “I think that everything has already been created, every year we witness a cycle of fashion trends. @m__a__p wouldn’t be a designer, I don’t like to repeat things.” Fashion aside, Trins uses Instagram as a resource for finding the most interesting creatives. “Right now I love to follow @unknwn.mag. It’s a Russian community which includes graffiti artists, painters, musicians, photographers and skateboarders from Saint Petersburg.”