‘We can all coexist’: artist Es Devlin uses selfies to unite UK in portrait of a nation

A National Portrait for the National Portrait Gallery aims to bring people together in increasingly atomised country Can a collective portrait of Britain hold together a country that feels as if it is splintering apart? That is the quietly radical hope behind Es Devlin’s new installation at the National Portrait Gallery: a living portrait comprised not of monarchs, politicians or celebrities but of thousands of ordinary faces drifting slowly into and out of one another. Created in collaboration