A few of their favorite things

The installation, set up like an altarpiece with one large vertical monitor flanked by two slightly smaller ones, offers the over-the-back-fence familiarity of seeing neighbors with their favorite things, set against a videotaped local backdrop suggested by the sitters. While Oatman’s sitters remain relatively still, life often goes on behind them - an absorbing and, at times, comic effect. The sun swiftly sets behind former Cambridge mayor Sheila Doyle Russell. A man in an apron stocks the shelves of Formaggio Kitchen behind cookbook authors Marilynn and Sheila Brass. We spoke to a few of Oatman’s subjects about what they’d brought to pose with.

REBEKAH KAUFMAN, 43

Marketing and communications specialist; collector of Steiff stuffed animals; blogger (www.mysteifflife.blogspot.com) Kaufman brought dozens of stuffed animals made by the German toy company to her video shoot. She holds two on her lap. “My grandmother was a teenager when she left Germany in the early 1940s, quickly. She took this teddy, a backpack, and clean underwear. I’m also holding a small brown monkey from the mid-1920s,’’ says Kaufman, who brought it as a nod to “Curious George.’’ “Cambridge was home to the Reys, who wrote ‘Curious George,’ so one of the most recognizable children’s books is part of the legacy of our city.’’

BERNIE FLYNN, 60

Chief of staff, National Association of Government Employees; Iraq War combat veteran Flynn, a retired US Army Colonel, was the commander of Abu Ghraib “after all the abuses,’’ he says. “The Army had developed new standards and new disciplinary actions to try to make life better for everybody there.’’ He appears with his military awards and decorations, including a Bronze Star and a Combat Action Badge. “You’re awarded the Combat Action Badge if you came under fire. It’s really no big deal,’’ he insists. “I’m just a moderate Democrat from Cambridge who happens to be a combat veteran.’’

AUDREY HUANG, 42

Lawyer; long-distance runner Huang’s all-woman team, the Go-Go Girls, competes each September in the Reach the Beach Relay, a 210-mile trek from Cannon Mountain to Hampton Beach in New Hampshire. “We wear tutus when we run,’’ she says. “It’s easy to find a runner at night when you see the pink tutu moving up and down. I think I run faster in the tutu.’’ Other talismans: Race medals, race numbers, and books galore. “I’ve read about 130 books so far this year,’’ Huang says. Her backdrop: a favorite stomping ground, the Boudreau Branch of the Cambridge Public Library.

MARILYNN AND SHEILA BRASS, 67 and 72

Cookbook authors “Two things are the passion of our lives,’’ says Marilynn Brass, who with her sister Sheila has penned two cookbooks and hosted a cooking special on WGBH. “We love antique kitchenware. Food molds. The other passion is manuscript cookbooks, assemblages of handwritten recipes that can go back generations.’’ Rabbit-shaped chocolate molds and old recipe manuscripts appear in their portrait, along with a red food carriage and fresh vegetables. “It’s like a summation of our lives,’’ Brass says.

KARL BADEN, 57

Photographer On a table beside Baden stands a frame containing a digitally animated montage of 360 images from Baden’s self-portrait project. The heap of pill bottles “represent illness, since I had a pretty serious battle with cancer at one time,’’ he says. The rack filled with ocean-themed paperbacks? “I have all these bizarre collections of books.’’ And the gas can? It’s a prop Oatman, an old friend, provided. “But let’s say it represents iconoclasm,’’ Baden suggests. “These things make their own connections in people’s minds, no matter what the intent was.’’