Following on from the words of Yoko Ono, it’s impossible not to be dumbstruck at how the possibility of making a film including everyone’s smile is actually more tangible than ever before. When she first declared he ultimate goal, Yoko was asking those who wanted to be a part of the project to go to their local post offices, drop a snapshot of themselves in an envelope and mail it to her, or even going to their local photographic studio and getting someone to capture their portrait. Now, we’re talking #hashtags and instagrams. Yes, almost five decades later the idea has taken on a new form, a downloadable app, making her intentions and dream not only more accessible, but more international.

The app, which can be downloaded from iTunes, features three sections; dream, watch and smile. Users can look at recently uploaded photos via a map that allows you to browse geographically, view all the snapshots in a moving slideshow in chronological order and take photos of their own smiles, which is stored by the app and tagged on the map based on where the image was taken. It’s a truly wonderful application and is proving to be rather distracting. For example, I live in Milan and I am able to browse other smiles in my city or, if I am feeling homesick, I can use it to look at images of those who in live in and around my hometown. What is wonderful about this app is that the smiles that you see are actually rather contagious, making it easy for those who are somewhat nervous of their own smile, a helping hand.

Since June 1, more than 6,100 photos have been added to the app, which can be on the website Smilesfilm

It’s a fact that emotions are contagious, as is a smile, and what Yoko Ono is doing is bringing us all together via communication that is international, via facial expressions. The range of images that can be found on the interactive map convey the smiles of those that are mere children to the wise grins of the elderly. As Yoko puts it, ‘I know that we can use this situation to make the whole world smile! Please smile for your health and joy. If all of us do this, our planet will be a heaven, created by us.’

Swide loves the sentiment that acts as the backbone to this project but what excites us even more is the evolution that it has gone through and the how much more possible that an idea of this scale can be achieved. We have taken the opportunity to turn our smart phones, computers and iTechnology on ourselves and joined the growing number of you in the hope that Yoko’s dream becomes reality.

For more from this project:

Smilesfilm Website 

Smilesfilm App on iTunes