I went to the hague and all I got was this t-shirt…

Ever since 2009, Susan Barnett (b. 1951) has been roaming the streets of the world looking for T-shirts with eye-catching prints. Young or old, male or female, rich or poor, the subjects of her portraits stand up fearlessly for their political opinions, ideals or personal mantras. Since Barnett invariably photographs them from the rear, their faces remain unseen. For that reason, her Not In Your Face series answers the question of whether dress, body type and demeanour can tell us as much about a person as their facial features or expression.

According to the American photographer and former gallery-holder, there has been a surprising change in the general tone of the messages since she embarked on her project. Just after the election of President Barack Obama, the slogans tended to be optimistic; now they are often angry and abusive.

The book T: A Typology of T-Shirts is an anthology of the photographs taken by Susan Barnett between 2009 and 2016. A selection of around fifty of them will be on show until 5 March in the lounge of Restaurant Gember (in the same building as the Hague Museum of Photography and GEM museum of contemporary art).