Mirror Into Auntieverse is an interactive installation that reframes photography as a live negotiation between body, machine and cultural memory. First presented at Paris Photo 2025, the work embeds motion capture and real time rendering within a 19th-century Napoleon III mirror frame. When visitors approach, their reflections are replaced by animated aunties from the Auntieverse, niceaunties’ ongoing AI driven world-building project that repositions the Asian auntie archetype from stereotype to protagonist.
The mirror tracks the viewer's body while preserving each auntie's distinct face and expression. After a brief pause, the auntie speaks. Her remarks are blunt and intimate, what niceaunties calls the "auntie love language," a form of care expressed through critique and practical concern. The mirror becomes both a portal into the Auntieverse and a reflection of the internal voice of self-criticism many carry: there is an auntie in all of us.
Physical sculpture incorporating a screen within a 19th-century antique French frame. AI-collaborative digital art.
121 x 86 cm
Unique artwork
At the centre stands a 19th-century Napoleon III mirror, transformed into a sculptural screen. Produced in collaboration with Load Gallery, the installation merges antique craftsmanship with contemporary technology, reimagining the mirror as a living digital surface. Equipped with motion capture technology and a concealed display, it reflects the visitor’s body but replaces their face with that of an auntie from the speculative Auntieverse. After a few seconds, the auntie delivers a familiar, blunt greeting, ranging from “Have you eaten?” to “You look so tired!”, reminding visitors how care often hides behind teasing honesty.
The antique frame was restored by traditional craftsmen in Paris, and its original angel replaced with a 3D printed auntie face painted and antiqued to match the surrounding ornament. A computing system integrated into the back makes the work a self-contained sculptural object. Since its debut the mirror has evolved with an integrated camera, an expanded cast of eight aunties and wireless printing that lets visitors take home an auntie memento. Motion tracking allows up to two human figures to interact simultaneously, each auntie following the contours of the viewer’s movement while retaining her own distinct features and expression. Subtitles appear in English and Spanish, bridging humour and cultural nuance.
Here, the mirror becomes a living surface of empathy and critique, transforming a fleeting reflection into a surreal act of recognition. In the Auntieverse, a recurring saying by niceaunties is that “there is an auntie in all of us,” reflecting the human nature of self-criticism and emotional complexity.
The mirror also playfully references fairy-tale stories such as the evil queen’s mirror in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Where the queen once demanded, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”, one of niceaunties’ reflections might instead quip, “You la, you are the fattest of them all!” turning the mythology of vanity into an act of comic self-awareness.
Drawing on art historical precedents, from Jan van Eyck to Manet, and on Asian folklore in which mirrors reveal moral truth, the work shifts reflection from vanity to accountability. The AI-generated portraits draw their visual language from niceaunties' mother's studio photographs of the late 1960s, using emerging technologies to preserve emotional and cultural languages at risk of disappearance. Mirror Into Auntieverse is part of the artist’s broader Auntieverse world-building project, merging the photographic act of capturing light through a machine with the speculative framework of a living, expanding digital world.
About the artist
niceaunties (Singapore) is an artist, designer and public speaker whose practice centres on reimagining the cultural figure of the “auntie.” Through speculative storytelling, she places ageing women at the centre of everyday life, exploring themes of food, beauty, care, and environmental awareness. Influenced by surrealism, fantasy, kawaii culture, and her architectural background, niceaunties’ work champions empowerment and self-expression.
niceaunties’ Auntieverse project was presented in a TED Talk in Vancouver in 2024, and has since been showcased globally, including exhibitions at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, the V&A in London during the 2024 Digital Art Weekend, and the AI Action Summit at the Grand Palais in Paris in 2025.
In 2024, she presented her collection Along the River in Auntieverse at Christie’s Art + Tech Conference in New York. The City of West Hollywood commissioned her to create Aunties on Sunset, a public artwork displayed on a billboard along Sunset Boulevard. Her work has been featured in The Straits Times, Forbes, and The Guardian.