Thursday 5TH December is our Christmas Social.
Open and free for anyone to attend.
We will be gathering at Magda Kuca’s studio in Earls Court from 5pm onwards. Email us or Magda for the address.
We will provide a few drinks and nibbles, but feel free to bring along any additions. 🎄
Image copyright Cornelia Parker | Through a Glass Darkly | Cristea Roberts Gallery
Online Talk - Exploring Chlorophyll Printing | An Herbarium Photo(synthesis) Album
An online talk on translating an herbarium into a photo album by using sunlight to create images on plants - a photographic collaboration with nature. Curated by artist Martha Gray with The Linnean Society of London.
Venue: Online
Date: 13 Nov 6-7.15pm
Tickets: Eventbrite - Free
In this series of work, artist Dianne Bos turns her own herbarium into a photo album by using sunlight to create images on plants. (An herbarium is a collection of dried plant specimens for scientific study).
The resulting chlorophyll prints are made using the natural chemistry of living plants — the ultimate sustainable photographic process. The images Bos has chosen to print ‘into’ the leaves reflect the many worlds that plants sustain, while also hinting there may be sci-fi elements at play.
These images are just as fragile and ephemeral as specific life-forms may be, when confronted with abrupt ecosystem change. In this lecture, Bos discusses the discoveries and reflections prompted by this photographic collaboration with nature.
Dianne Bos, an internationally-exhibiting artist based in Canada and France, has evolved various thematic bodies of work, and merged technical innovations to create new visual hybrids. Her innovative uses of pinhole, camera obscura, installation, and alternative photographic techniques explore the world around us. ‘The excitement, for me, lies not in reproducing something I can see, but in revealing the imperceptible (and maybe only the imagined) using the physics of light and time and darkroom
This is part two of three-part event collaboration with The Linnean Society of London.
Symbiosis III at Brighton Photo Fringe
An exhibition organised by the London Alternative Photography Collective at Brighton Photo Fringe - curated by Hayley Harrison, Melanie King, and Ky Lewis.
Venue: Pheonix Art Space, 10-14 Waterloo Pl, Brighton and Hove, Brighton BN2 9NB
Dates: 04 October - 17 November 2024. Exhibition opening event: 4th October evening.
‘Symbiosis III’ is an evolving collection of works by members of the London Alternative Photography Collective, exploring the relationship between image makers, the more-than-human, and alternative photographic processes.
What does it mean to be in relationship with a landscape or a plant for extended periods of time – to witness the interplay between individual species within their ecosystems? What is the role of artistic testimony when witnessing symbiosis within these relationships?
Whether by process or theme, this collection of works documents interspecies relationships – including those between humans and non-humans. Photographic and momentary, they are mid-relationship – we can only guess the before and after.
This collective brings together artists from diverse disciplines working together, exchanging ideas and techniques related to sustainable practices.
This exhibition considers those connections between symbiosis and alternative photography, and asks if nature is a collaborator or a commodity in alternative photography processes.
How do we bear witness to symbiotic relationships between different species, alongside our responsibility to acknowledge that the true definition of symbiosis is both parasitic and mutualistic? Much like alternative photographic processes, balance and equilibrium are essential to symbiosis.
Artists:
Ed Sykes
Ky Lewis
Hayley Harrison
Megan Ringrose
Soham Joshi
Sophie Sherwood
Esme Papa
Sayako Sugawara
Anna Lukala
Anna Kroeger
Riya Panwar
Wendy Hardie
Laura Hindmarsh
Milena Michalski
Zara Carpenter
Equivalentbehaviour Space presents Air Index by Rachelle Bussières
Venue: Equivalentbehaviour Space // Tokoro Studio, N15 4QL London // August 15–26, 2024
Dates:
Opening Reception: Thursday, August 15, 5-9PM
Conversation with Rachelle Bussières and Melanie King: Sunday, August 18, 4PM
Gong Bath with Agata Kik // Martyn Riley: Sunday, August 18, 6PM
Supported by Canada Council for the Arts
The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. Each evening we see the sun set. We know that the earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits the sight.
— John Berger, Ways of Seeing (1972)
The technique of lumen printing is an art of errors, a softly anarchist twisting of a thing’s destiny. Gelatin silver paper, intended for recording black-and-white photographs, is instead left brightly toned — undeveloped — and stabilized with fixer in order to retain its array of pinks, violets, pastels, and dull yellows. This hybrid form glows; it exists in a space between photography and painted canvas, document and pure form.
Bussières’ photograms are made in the tradition of earlier photographs by Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy who captured the shadows of material objects resting directly against photographic paper. Bussières’ images have typically been composed from natural and artificial light sources reflected by curved metal tools which trace precise geometries onto the photogram, redirecting light like a material thing: receiving it, channeling it, and guiding its various spectral effects. Much like the Suprematist forms of Kazimir Malevich, she is drawn to repetition, reiterating circular and orbital forms in reference to astrological phenomena. Many of her photo prints take the form of glancing ellipses, vectors passing by like comets, and the momentary alignment of planetary bodies preceding a conjunction or eclipse.
Air Index builds upon Bussières’ previous series of works, bridging photography’s documentary intent as an instrument for recording the visible with its distinct materiality as a painterly substrate sensitive to the fluctuations of light and time.
As days cycle and seasons elapse, photographic paper invariably absorbs the visible spectrum of light given to it, shifting, staining, and embedding chemical transformations within its alchemical surface. The variations in tonality and color within each photograph record a vast array of atmospheric conditions, too many to pin to any particular time of day or weather event, yet noticeably marked by the oscillations and disturbances experienced over the course of the exposure.
Here, the indexicality of the photographic process in which light-sensitive chemistry is materially marked by the impact of photons becomes a secondary index of the air itself: the dichotomous imprint of humid/torrid, fluctuating/invariable, and pellucid/obscure moments of atmospheric conditions made visible. During this past winter, spring, and summer, Bussières, based in New York City, corresponded with twenty-five artists from various locales to coordinate the prints collected at Equivalentbehaviour Space. Each photographer exposed a few sheets of gelatin silver paper to their local light, allowing it to become suffused with the radiance, atmospheric flux, and impurities of their environment. An excess of light can inhibit a clear view; it can dazzle and blind. But here, the point is not to see; it is a matter of receiving this light itself. These saturated photograms, in which the blinding brightness of the world permeates the photogram, show what is often hidden in the standard photographic image. The invisible matter enveloping our lives makes itself visible.
A series of unfixed photographic works titled Wind Prints accentuates the temporal nature of the photograph, which begins to reproduce an image immediately upon contact with light. By exposing the prints in a lit studio rather than the enclosed space of a darkroom, and by rolling the paper into a cylinder so that the edges of the print function as an aperture, Bussières creates an elongated camera obscura with an opening at each end. This functions to project slight linear rays of light horizontally across the print. When unrolled, the unfixed prints fade, their incandescence vanishing as a subsequent image forms.
Meanwhile, Bussières’ installation Sky Prints takes the form of a spartan arrangement of rectangles, each unframed printstripped down to a nearly platonic ideal. The minimalist rectangles are exposed to daylight or moonlight, sometimes both, for a specified duration, then bathed in photographic fixer to arrest the process. Colors seep across each photogram in gradients which materialize like the crepuscular staining of the sky at dusk; they absorb the transitory luminescence given to them by the surrounding glow of the physical world. The photograph, a medium dedicated to portrayals of reality, is ill equipped to handle experiences which approach the limits of appearance. The result is nonobjective, subjectless; it seems to show nothing. In actuality, these Sky Prints gaze back through the troposphere and beyond to the vacuum of space, showing us infinity. Much as Cézanne found true of painting, we are offered “an abyss into which the eye sinks.”
In Sky Prints, this encounter between sight and knowledge belies a secondary, material condition of their production. The earth’s atmosphere, in granting light its passage to the surface, alters its properties, scattering photons against particulate matter, carbon-based pollutants, haze from simmering wildfires, volatile organic compounds which bond to form smog, or the early morning emanations of oceanic fog. Beyond this atmospheric scrim, our eyes and meticulous scientific instruments peer toward emptiness; shielded by dense layers of cloud cover and transparent atmosphere, these earthbound photograms ceaselessly record their surroundings, transforming what they find into soft gradient washes of color on gelatin silver paper. Rather than ignore the haze or correct for its presence, Bussières opts to record the totality of these atmospheric vapors and their effects.
Text by Christopher Squier, New York City
The Sky Prints project was made in collaboration with artists from around the globe; Svetlana Bailey (New York), Rachelle Bussières (New York), Robert Canali (San Francisco), Vanessa Cowling (Cape Town), Kate Van Der Drift (New Zealand), Hannah Fletcher (London), Shaina Gates (Kittery), Martha Gray (London), Ramona Guntert (London), Natasha Harrison (Orlando), Daniel Hojnacki (Chicago), Nikolai Ishchuk (London), Constanza Isaza Martinez (London), Thomas Jenkins (London), Tamara Kalo (Beirut), Melanie King (Manchester), Alyssa Minahan (Boston), Sara Minsky (New York), Ng Hui Hsien (Singapore), Yvette Hamilton (Sydney), Armelle Tulunda (Paris), Yann Pocreau (Montréal), Izabela Pluta (Sydney), John Steck Jr. (Baltimore), and Katrina Stamatopoulos (London).
In conjunction with Air Index at Equivalentbehaviour, Melanie King’s installation, Quantum Entanglement Oscillograph, is exhibited at Tokoro Studio. During a residency at the Joint Research Centre, King worked with Constantin 'Costas' Coutsomitros, allowing her to discover how his Quantum Walks Experiment operated. Visiting Costas's laboratory was an incredibly interesting experience, as he was experimenting with technologies that emit very minute electrical activities.
Following her visit to the JRC, she used the data that Costas provided her from the Quantum Walks photon detectors to create an audio file. She used these files to create a Quantum Entanglement Oscillograph. The first oscillograph measures the data connected to the first photon. The second oscillograph represents the other photon, which should also feel the interference of the first data stream. Visually, the oscillographs should look exactly the same, but it is up to the observer to detect any eventual differences. The entangled photons that Costas is working with have far-reaching implications. Theoretically, entangled photons could feel the same interference across the entire universe simultaneously, without the limitations of the speed of light. Thus, the concept of entangled photons has revolutionized our understanding of how the universe works.
Lumen Print Workshop with Rachelle Bussières at Equivalentbehaviour
LUMEN PRINT WORKSHOP WITH GUEST ARTIST Rachelle Bussières
SUNDAY, AUGUST 17, 2024
11am-5pm Equivalentbehaviour, N15 4QL
Cost - £150. Book via Equivalentbehaviour.
In this hands-on workshop, participants will experiment with various lumen printing techniques utilising the studio space, a dark space and outdoors. Participants will learn to create cameraless lumen prints using onsite plants, other objects, and botanicals brought by participants.
Lumen prints are produced using gelatin silver paper, which is exposed to light and then placed directly into the fixer. Drawing from the lumen print process of invited guest artist Rachelle Bussières, participants will grasp methods for achieving colors on gelatin silver paper. Ethereal pastel tones will emerge through experimentation with exposure time, types of light (natural and artificial), and the paper used.
Students will explore different techniques to gain insight into the factors influencing the colors of gelatin silver paper and to develop a small body of work.
This playful one-day workshop is open to all ages and families!
PLEASE NOTE, that we have limited places available
*A presentation of Rachelle’s practice will kick off the session to gain insight into the potentials of practicing lumen printing.
*A home cooked lunch will be provided by Equivalentbehaviour
The Big Film Photowalk - 29th June 2024 - LAPC X Analogue Wonderland
The London Alternative Photography Collective are collaborating with Analogue Wonderland on The Big Film Photowalk on 29th June 2024.
Alongside Analogue Wonderland, we are leading walks in:
London - Lux Darkroom (Constanza Isaza Martinez)
Bristol - Bristol Folkhouse Darkroom (Sophie Sherwood)
Margate - London Alt Photo (Melanie King) - (29th June, 3PM, Margate Steps)
Tickets Via Analogue Wonderland - £12
Tickets include:
A guided photowalk in your chosen location, led by an experienced film shooter
a FREE roll of 35mm Kodak colour film (exact emulsion tbc)
FREE development and scanning of the roll with Analogue Wonderland
entry into a competition for 'Best Film Photo' taken on the day - with lots of film goodies for the winner and runners-up
Symbiosis II at Four Corners Gallery, Bethnal Green
An exhibition organised by London Alternative Photography Collective at Four Corners Gallery - curated by Hayley Harrison, Melanie King, and Ky Lewis.
Installation images:
Digital: Anna Lukala
Film: Katrina Stamatopoulos
Private View: Thursday 16th May 2024 18.00 - 20.30. Photo-scanner synth demo by Hack Modular.
Closing Event & LAPC Social: Saturday 18th May, 16:30 - 18:00. Bring a cup of tea and a snack!
Exhibition Open: Wed 15th May - Saturday 18th May 2024 11.00 -18.00.
Four Corners: 121 Roman Road, Bethnal Green, London, E2 0QN
‘Symbiosis’ is a group exhibition exploring the relationship between image makers, the more-than-human, and alternative photographic processes.
When working with analogue and alternative photographic processes, light, water, and botanicals are harvested to expose, process, tone and transform work. During this transformation, there is dependency on non-human elements.
This exhibition considers the connections between symbiosis and alternative photography, and asks if nature is a collaborator or a commodity in alternative photography processes.
What does it mean to be in relationship with a landscape or a plant for extended periods of time – to witness the interplay between individual species within their ecosystems? What is the role of artistic testimony when witnessing symbiosis within these relationships?
Whether by process or theme, this exhibition documents interspecies relationships – including those between humans and non-humans. Photographic and momentary, they are mid-relationship – we can only guess the before and after.
How do we bear witness to symbiotic relationships between different species, alongside our responsibility to acknowledge that the true definition of symbiosis is both parasitic and mutualistic? Much like alternative photographic processes, balance and equilibrium are essential to symbiosis.
During the exhibition opening there will be a photo-scanner synth demo by Hack Modular. The synthesizer module generates sound by rapidly scanning lines across photographs. Variations between dark and light translate directly to the movement of the speaker. Slides therefore are wavetables and contain a unique set of sounds. Moving the transparency across the linear photo-scanner shifts the timbre of the sound. Scan rate equates to pitch. Lamp intensity controls dynamics.
Artists:
Aindreas Scholz / Anna Kroeger / Anna Luk / Anna Lukala / Catriona Gray / Constanza Isaza Martinez / Ed Sykes / Eileen White / Eric Fong / Hayley Harrison / Heloise Bergman / Inga Tillere / Jacqui Barrowcliffe / Katrina Stamatopoulos / Ky Lewis / Laura Hindmarsh / Leanne Wiggers / Luca Ortis / Magda Kuca / Martha Gray / Megan Ringrose / Melanie King / Milena Michalski / Nettie Edwards / Paeony Lewis / Riya Panwar / Roellof Bakker / Sayako Sugawara / Sophie Sherwood / Vikki Rutter / Yasuaki Matsumoto / Zara Carpenter
Poster Image: Riya Panwar
Illumination // Centrespace Gallery, Bristol with Bristol Folkhouse Darkroom
Illumination
Dates: 20-24 April 2024. 10am-6pm
Opening Event: 19th April, 6pm-9pm
Venue: Centrespace Gallery, 6 Leonard Ln, Bristol BS1 1EA
An exhibition exploring light, the photographic, and the self.
We present an exhibition of artists working with alternative, analogue, photographic processes to explore their internal world and sense of identity. Curated by Melanie King, Sarah Rose Currie, and Sophie Sherwood.
Artists:
Claire McCarthy
Claudia Pilsl
Daniela Spector
Dee Byrne
Ella Bryant
Gilbert Hayes Spencer
Grant Beran
Hannah Morgan
Helen Emily Davy
Henwyn Collective
Jenny Lewis
Joanna Byrne
Kate Beaugié
Katie Lou McCabe
Lenka Rayn H
Magda Bond
Marco Ferrari
Naroa Perez
Nettie Edwards
Phillipa Klaiber
Sarah Currie
Soham Joshi
Sophie Anna Gibbings
Sophie Sherwood
Wai Lok Cheung
Wenjun Xie/Peiran Wang
Xiayi Su
Symbiosis Exhibition at Hundred Years Gallery, Hoxton
SYMBIOSIS
An exhibition organised by London Alternative Photography Collective at Hundred Years Gallery, Hoxton, 13 Pearson St, London E2 8JD. Organised by Melanie King, Ky Lewis and Hayley Harrison.
Exhibition Open: 18th January - 27 January 2024.
Opening Times: Wed - Fri 14:00 to 19:00 Sat: 16:00 to 19:00 Sun: 13:30 to 19:00
Evening Events opening: 19:30 to 22:00
Opening Party/Private View: Thursday 18th of January 2024 6.30 to 9.30
Photo-scanner synth demo by Hack Modular.
Closing event (artist tour): Saturday 27 January 2024 4-7.30pm.
Artists:
Alice Watkins
Anna Kroeger
Anna Luk
Anna Lukala
Catriona Gray
Constanza Isaza Martinez
Ed Sykes
Eileen White
Eric Fong
Esme Papa
Hayley Harrison
Imogen Locke
Katrina Stamatopoulous
Ky Lewis
Leanne Wiggers
Magda Kuca
Martha Gray
Megan Ringrose
Nettie Edwards
Paeony Lewis
Roelof Bakker
Sayako Sugawara
Sophia Sherwood
Walter and Zoniel
During the exhibition opening there will be a photo-scanner synth demo by Hack Modular. The synthesizer module generates sound by rapidly scanning lines across photographs. Variations between dark and light translate directly to the movement of the speaker. Slides therefore are wavetables and contain a unique set of sounds. Moving the transparency across the linear photo-scanner shifts the timbre of the sound. Scan rate equates to pitch. Lamp intensity controls dynamics.
‘Symbiosis’ is a group exhibition exploring the relationship between image makers, the more-than-human, and alternative photographic processes.
When working with analogue and alternative photographic processes, light, water, and botanicals are harvested to expose, process, tone and transform work. During this transformation, there is dependency on non-human elements.
Questions to consider within this exhibition:
What are the connections between symbiosis and alternative photography?
Is nature a collaborator or a commodity in alternative photography processes?
What does it mean to be in relationship with a landscape or a plant for extended periods of time – to witness the interplay between individual species within their ecosystems? What is the role of artistic testimony when witnessing symbiosis within these relationships?
Whether by process or theme, this exhibition documents interspecies relationships – including those between humans and non-humans. Photographic and momentary, they are mid-relationship – we can only guess the before and after.
How do we bear witness to symbiotic relationships between different species, alongside our responsibility to acknowledge that the true definition of symbiosis is both parasitic and mutualistic? Much like alternative photographic processes, balance and equilibrium are essential to symbiosis.
Text: Hayley Harrison
Images: Ky Lewis and Hayley Harrison
Lakeside Darkroom, Show & Tell, Sat 23 September 2-4pm
Date & Time: Saturday 23rd September, 2-4pm.
Venue: Lakeside Darkroom, Studio A-02 Ground floor
Address: Lakeside Centre, Bazalgette Way, London, SE2 9AN
The session provides an opportunity for practitioners using alternative photography processes to share their work with a community of peers. Artists using alternative processes can both give and receive feedback on current projects, share technical tips and provide advice. It’s a popular event and we expect to receive a large amount of submissions. Each participant will have 3 minutes to present their work. Participants must show physical work/prints. Led by Melanie King and Naroa Perez.
Free, please book ahead and email londonaltphoto@gmail.com to confirm your place.
Workshops at Camp Wildfire // Summer 2023
In August and September 2023, the London Alternative Photography Collective will be providing spruce film developer and phytogram workshops at Camp Wildfire in Sevenoaks, Kent. This year, artists providing workshops are Hannah Fletcher, Eileen White, John Blythe, Anna Lukala, Edd Carr, Alice Cazenave, Lucia Ferguson and Dinke Van Der Zalm.
Collective Polyphony Festival
The London Alternative Photography Collective are pleased to be participating in the Collective Polyphony Festival in Melbourne, Australia, from 13 September to 07 October 2023. The contributing artists are Hannah Fletcher, Martha Gray, Melanie King and Katrina Stamatopoulos.
About the festival
Modelling peace-building architecture and infrastructure, the Collective Polyphony Festival is a ground-breaking multi-space event that fosters and nurtures emerging and established artist collectives. It is founded upon the central idea of artists supporting artists.
This extraordinary gathering brings together 10 local and international, emerging and established artist collectives across 7 exhibition spaces.
For Collective Polyphony Festival exhibitions, each collective is encouraged to work within their unique themes and agendas to develop new work or show existing projects. Just as in music, where polyphony weaves together distinct melodies to create a harmonious whole, Collective Polyphony Festival embraces a narrative and artistic approach that welcomes multiple perspectives, voices, and ideas. At a time when many communities are socially and politically fragmented, Collective Polyphony Festival seeks to reimagine the world through a multifaceted but united lens.
Experiments with Lumen Printing with Rachelle Bussieres
Experiments with Lumen Printing, a 3 - part indepth workshop series with artist Rachelle Bussieres.
In this online course, participants will explore various techniques of the lumen print process.
Lumen prints are silver gelatin papers exposed to light and put directly into photographic fixer. Ethereal pastel tones are created by the time of exposure, the type of light, and the kind of paper used in the process. Participants will experiment with different techniques to better understand the factors that influence the colors of the silver gelatin paper, such as lumen print collages, cameraless prints, and digital negatives.
In addition to studio time, participants will receive weekly readings that will be discussed at the beginning of each class. All reading are provided as PDFs. The readings will be sent prior to each session. Participants are asked to present work at the beginning of the 2nd and 3rd session. Therefore, a scanner or any other from of sharing work is recommended.
£150 ticket cost covers all 3 sessions. (£50 per session, plus eventbrite fees)
Session 1 = 03 September 2023 1.30PM - 4.30PM GMT
Session 2 = 10 September 2023 1.30PM - 4.30PM GMT
Session 3 = 17 September 2023 1.30PM - 4.30PM GMT
Materials
- Two trays: a pre-mixed solution of photo fixer (Rachelle recommends Ilford Rapid Fixer) and a tray of plain water for washing.
- Black and white fiber-based photography paper (Rachelle recommends 11x14 inches Ilford multigrade fiber paper (+ optional warm tones photo paper))
- Natural and artificial light
- Contact printing frames (Could easily be built with a plexi-glass board and clippers)
- Drying rack
- Hot press (*optional)
- Photogram materials: cut-outs, your own fingers/hands/feet, organic materials such as flowers and plants, cut-outs, etc.
- Digital negatives - should be ready and printed on pictorico prior to the workshop
Safety
- Gloves
- Apron
Rachelle Bussières (Quebec City, Canada) received her MFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 2015. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Addressing the impact of light on our psyche, environment and social structure, Rachelle Bussières’ work is at the intersection of photography and sculpture, moving through a collision of materials and documents through the lumen photographic process. Bussières is the recipient of the Penumbra Workspace Award from Penumbra Foundation and the Award for Excellence from the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation. She has had recent solo exhibitions at Penumbra Foundation (NYC, USA), Johansson Projects (Oakland, USA) and Robert Koch Gallery (San Francisco, USA). Some recent group shows include Seattle Pacific University (Seattle, WA), Tiger Strikes Asteroid (Brooklyn), Soil Gallery (Seattle, WA), the General French Consulate (San Francisco, CA), the Wing (San Francisco, CA), the Center for Fine Art Photography (Fort Collins, CO), Minnesota Street Project (San Francisco, CA), Galerie l’Inlassable (Paris, FR), Headlands Center for the Arts (Sausalito, CA) and Present Company (Brooklyn, NY). She was awarded residencies at Penumbra Foundation, Banff Centre, Minnesota Street Project and Headlands Center for the Arts. Her work is present in various public, corporate and private collections, including the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, SFMOMA Library and Archives, Facebook (commission mural) in Sunnyvale, Instagram Inc. in San Francisco and Penumbra Foundation in New York City. She is part of the first cohort in the new residency program at the World Trade Center, the Silver Art Projects and preparing a solo exhibition at Melanie Flood Projects (Portland, OR) in the Spring 2021.
SCHEDULE
03 September 2023 1.30PM - 4.30PM UK BST
Session 1: ABSTRACTION IN PHOTOGRAPHY. THE LEGACY FOR LUMEN PRINT ARTISTS
Artists: Rachelle Bussières, John Steck Jr., Robert Canali, Amanda March and Laurie Kang
Studio: Demonstration. Steps-by-steps; how to achieve colors.
Readings (sent prior to each session): Eliasson, Olafur: “Some Ideas about Colour.” In Olafur Eliasson: Your Colour Memory. Edited by Ismail Soyugenc and Richard Torchia. Exhibition catalogue. Glenside: Arcadia University Art Gallery, 2006: 75-83.
10 September 2023 1.30PM - 4.30PM UK BST
Session 2: FIGURATION WITH LUMENS; THE DIGITAL NEGATIVE
Artists: Chris McCaw, James Welling, Marco Breuer, Michael Flomen, Penelope Umbrico, Roge Newton, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Uta Barth
Studio : Figuration. Contact printing with a digital negative.
Readings (sent prior to each session): Rexer, Lyle. “Chapter 4” in T he Edge of Vision. The Rise of Abstraction in Photography. Aperture Foundation. 2013. New York.
17 September 2023 1.30PM - 4.30PM UK BST
Session 3: LIGHT AND SHADOWS
Artists: Anna Atkins, Aspen Mays, Klea McKenna, Meghann Riepenhoff, John Opera and Mariah Robertson
Studio: Compositions with light and shadows; the 3D object.
Readings (sent prior to each session): Chapter 4 in Argyronomicon by Mike Ware
10 Years of LAPC!
We want to welcome all of those who have been involved with LAPC over the years to celebrate with us as we mark 10 years of promoting and supporting the creative possibilities of analogue and experimental photography.
Location: SET Kensington, 7-17 Ansdell St, London, W8 5BN
We invite you bring along an alternative processes self-portrait to exhibit in the space as well as any beverages you wish to enjoy.
We will hear from 3 artists over the course of the evening:
Sayako Sugawara, Sayako Sugawara is a London based Japanese artist working with photography, moving image and installation. Born in Milan, she completed both her BFA and MFA at Tama Art University, Tokyo, Japan, followed by MA Photography at UAL London.
Using various photographic processes and the cognitive associations that occur in the physical aspect of creative development, her work explores notions of memory and imagination, analysis and poetics, stillness and movement.
Sayako has exhibited internationally (BE, CH,CN, DE, ES, JP, NL) in both solo and group shows; most recently a solo show at Ibasho Gallery, Antwerp, BE and had works included in the London Alternative Photography Collective group show Beyond Silver.
Soham Joshi, is an Indian visual artist living in Brighton, UK. He uses cameraless and alternative photographic techniques to explore urbanity and identity. His research relates materiality in photography to how we situate ourselves within the urban landscape.
Sophie Bryer, is a transdisciplinary, conceptual artist exploring the relationship of art with science through an autoethnographic approach. With a background in philosophy, she redefines portraiture and identity through the examination of their negative space – delving into the influence of one’s environment, the enduring impact we have on others and in our creations, and the remnants and emotional resonance that persist in our absence. Inspired by post-structuralist constructivism, Sophie abstracts and investigates themes of memory and legacy with materiality – creating installation works which integrate photography, etching, and sculpture of steel and thread.
We look forward to celebrating and reflecting back over the past 10 years with you all!
Beyond Silver
Venue: The Hive, 43-47 Vittoria St, Birmingham, B1 3PE.
Dates:19th January - 10 Feb 2023.
Exhibition opening times:
Tuesday to Friday, 9am to 3.30pm. (Cafe open hours)
Installation images: Elissa Jane Diver
Metals and minerals are of the earth - extracted, purified, dried, cut, mould, extruded, dissolved and filtered. Photographic images are of the earth, they are metals and minerals, polished, coated, sensitised, exposed, developed, washed, fixed, displayed. We rely on the sensitivity of these metals to depict the world around us, the earth that they come from.
Silver has taken a leading role in this history - it is a history of colonisation, extraction, and depiction. From Louis Daguerre’s Daguerreotypes to Henry Fox Talbot’s calotypes in the early 1800s, to today's digital Chromogenic prints - silver is seen as unbeatable when it comes to making a quality, archivable photographic image. However, silver is not the only metal used for image making.
The London Alternative Photography Collective present “Beyond Silver”, an exhibition that explores the relationships between analogue photography and metallurgy. The exhibition will consider the use of silver in photography, as well as shining a light on many of the other metals that are used within photographic image production, in both historical and contemporary practice. In addition to silver, the exhibition will include works which utilise lesser known metals in photography including iron, copper, tin, aluminium, platinum and palladium.
Exhibiting artists: Ignacio Acosta, Victoria Ahrens, William Arnold, Alex Boyd, Alice Cazenave, Caitriona Dunnett, Hannah Fletcher, Jo Gane, Kate Goodrich, Martha Gray, Charlotte Greenwood, Constanza Isaza,Elissa Jane Diver, Soham Joshi, Melanie King, Liane Lang, Sara Mulvey, Andrés Pardo, Oliver Raymond-Barker, Megan Ringrose, Kris Skyla, Sayako Sugawara, Diego Valente, Eileen White
Public Programme:
Wednesday 18th 6 - 8pm = Private view
Thursday 19th 10am - 12pm = Electromagnetic field Cyanotype workshop with Martha Gray
Thursday 19th 12.30 - 1.30pm = Artist/curator led exhibition tour
This exhibition is supported by Canterbury Christ Church University, the Exeter Sustainability Institute, Falmouth University and the University of Birmingham.
Text: Hannah Fletcher
Transmutation Exhibition at The Margate School
Exhibition Open: 12th January 2023 - 19th January 2023, 10am - 4pm
Opening Party: 12 January 2023, 6-8pm. 35mm exhibition opening photos by Katrina Stamatopoulos, digital photos by The Margate Mercury.
Artists:
Tina Rowe
Laura Copsey
Pawel Kula
Priysha Rajvanshi
Katrina Stamatopoulos
Anthony Carr
Sapphire Goss
Zara Carpenter
Natalie Keymist
Dominic Rose
Jenny Duff
Michelle Grant
Charlotte Padgham
Esme Morris
Rachel Rimell
Clementine Blue & Joseph Ball
Isaac Alfred
Grace Warne
Jo de Banzie
Rosalba Breazeale
Becky Korn & Anastasia Shneps-Shneppe
Nicole Burnay
David Babaian
Sebastian Edge
The London Alternative Photography Collective and Thanet Alternative Photography Collective presents Transmutation, an exhibition of works produced using experimental, analogue and alternative photographic processes. An alchemical underpinning of transformation, creation, or combination is central to the show while simultaneously fusing a range of disciplines, including sound, sculpture, technology and performance. Positioning analogue photographic practice as a physical three-dimensional agent.
This transdisciplinary exhibition proposes photography as a dynamic, light sensitive, explorative medium for navigating our world. Photography which is made to remember and to forget. It has incredible dualistic qualities that can ask us to look in another way, look again, or to even look away. As a physical translation of optics, photography’s relationship to being two dimensional can be framed by the materiality of paper, and by the digital nature of screens. It will always be dualistic. Angular lines and rectangular formats typically harness photographic perceptions, and the networked image continuously repositions photography, in displacing it through time and space.
It is important to free ideologies of what makes a photograph, and to relax into the potential materiality of what being light sensitive can be. (Text: Diego Valente)
Information about The Margate School (TMS) Gallery and Events Space
The Margate School (TMS) Gallery and Events Space is part of TMS, an independent and international post-graduate liberal arts school based in the heart of Margate at the lower end of the high street. It is on the ground floor, and accessible to the public with wheelchair access.
It features a large gallery/cafe area and a grand piano, an auditorium with cinema seats and audio visual facilities. There is also a workshop area with tables and chairs. The Gallery and Events space is facing the high street, with large windows. Also located on the ground floor are our hirable darkrooms, and a kiln which can be used by the public on enquiry with our technician together with studio spaces.
Information about the London Alternative Photography Collective
The London Alternative Photography Collective provides regular artist talks on the subject of analogue & alternative photography processes used in contemporary art. The collective supports practitioners who challenge traditional ways of printing images to reflect on contemporary issues. The London Alternative Photography collective is also a platform for exchange of knowledge and skills, as well as creative ideas and exhibition concepts. We regularly curate exhibitions and run affordable/free workshops and demonstrations and organise symposiums in London.
Organised by:
Melanie King (TAPC, LAPC)
Dominic Rose (The Margate School)
Hannah Fletcher, Diego Valente, Katrina Stamatopoulos (LAPC)
Emily Rose Parris (TAPC)
Artists chosen via an open call on Curatorspace.
Workshops at Camp Wildfire // Summer 2022
On Saturday 27 & Sunday 28 August 2022 and 03 & 04 September 2022, the London Alternative Photography Collective will be providing spruce film developer and phytogram workshops at Camp Wildfire in Sevenoaks, Kent. The workshops will be facilitated by Hannah Fletcher, Melanie King, John Blythe, Eileen White, Diego Valente, Lewis Heriz and Lucia Ferguson.
Precious Metals // Online Seminar with Photofusion
On Friday 29 July, Melanie King will present a seminar which broadly considers the use of precious metals in astronomy, photography, jewellery, and engineering. The seminar discusses a range of issues surrounding extractivism and colonialism, relating to the current unsustainable uses of silver, palladium, and other heavy metals.
Alice Cazenave will discuss her doctoral research and practice, looking at neo-colonial resource extraction.
Dr Leah-Nani Alconcel will discuss her experience with metallurgy as a spacecraft engineer, and lecturer in metallurgy.
Dr Ignacio Acosta will speak about his “Copper Geographies” project, and his collaborative project “Traces of Nitrate”.
Artist Runo Lagomarsino will discuss his project “La place entre les murs”, a series of photographs and silver sculpture which has been made from silver extracted from fixative.
Artist and Jewellery designer Charlotte E Padgham will discuss jewellery created using discarded silver from photographic fixer.
Artist Oliver Raymond Barker will discuss his recent residency at the Exeter Sustainability Institute, looking at sustainable uses of silver within photographic practice.
Astronomer Dr Camilla Hansen will discuss her astronomical research, which demonstrates how precious metals such as silver and palladium can only be formed in high energy stellar events, such as supernova explosions.
Finally, Melanie King will discuss the work produced as part of her “Precious Metals” exhibition at Photofusion, of which this seminar is part. This project considers the materiality of silver and palladium, from their production within the cosmos, extraction from Earth and their uses within our society. This project focuses on silver and palladium use in photography, suggesting methods of using the materials that are less harmful to the environment.
The seminar is supported by Arts Council England and Melanie King’s Patreon supporters.
Sustainable Photographic Processes Seminar // Canterbury Christ Church University
SUSTAINABLE PHOTOGRAPHIC PRACTICES
Powell Lecture Theatre
PG09, Canterbury Christ Church University
Monday 04 July 2022.
14:00 – 17:00
2pm Introduction by Melanie King
2.15 Alice Cazenave Talk & Q+A
3.15 Break for refreshments and cakes
3.45 Hannah Fletcher Talk & Q+A
4.45 Closing Remarks
In this seminar, Alice Cazenave, Hannah Fletcher and Melanie King will discuss the sustainability of photographic practice. This seminar will consider a multitude of practice-based methods, that limit the environmental impact of analogue photographic processes.
Alice Cazenave Is a Doctoral Researcher in Visual Anthropology at the University of Goldsmiths, London. She is an associate lecturer on the MA in Visual Communication at Canterbury Christ Church University Alice's research focuses on the materiality of photography, specifically silver. Her project traces silver's movements through temporalities, geologies and climates to consider entanglements between media matter and the Anthropocene. Tracing journeys of photographic silver, Alice examines where it is sourced, its toxicity, and how it mobilises to enable analogue industries. Alice draws on experimental image-making as a material enquiry into these entanglements. Alice’s photographic work has been published in The British Journal of Photography and The Guardian and the New York Times. Co-developing the Sustainable Darkroom, she researches plant-based chemistries as substitutes for traditional darkroom materials. She has exhibited internationally and given talks at multiple institutions including The Science Museum.
Hannah Fletcher is a London based artist, working with cameraless photographic processes, founder of The Sustainable Darkroom, Co-director of London Alternative Photography Collective and a facilitator of sustainability within the arts. Hannah Fletcher’s work intertwines organic matter such as soils, algae, mushrooms and roots into analogue photographic mediums and surfaces. She does this while simultaneously exploring environmentally and ecologically focused issues. Working in an investigative, pseudo-scientific and environmentally conscious manner, Hannah combines scientific techniques with photographic processes, creating a dialogue between the poetic and political. Most recently, she has initiated and is running The Sustainable Darkroom Project; an artist run research, training and mutual learning programme to equip cultural practitioners with new skills and knowledge to develop a more environmentally friendly analogue photography / darkroom practice. Tackling issues including, but not limited to; the volumes of water used to wash films and prints, the resin coated paper going to landfill, the harsh development and fixing chemicals and heavy metals polluting soils and aquatic systems, bovine gelatine coating paper and films.
Melanie King is a Lecturer in Photography at Canterbury Christ Church University. She is co-Director of super/collider, Lumen Studios and founder of the London Alternative Photography Collective. She is currently Artist In Residence at the School of Metallurgy and Materials at The University of Birmingham, from Feb 2021 to June 2022. Melanie is a PhD Candidate at the Royal College of Art (2015-2022). Melanie is interested in the relationship between the environment, photography and materiality. Melanie intends to highlight the intimate connection between celestial objects (sun, moon, stars), photographic material and the natural world. Melanie is currently researching a number of sustainable photographic processes, to minimise the environmental impact of her artistic practice, informed by the Sustainable Darkroom movement. Melanie's 2021-2022 project "Precious Metals" considers the materiality of silver and palladium, from the production of silver and palladium within the cosmos, extraction from Earth and its uses within our society. This project focuses on their use in photography, suggesting methods of using the material that is less harmful to the ecology of the Earth
In residence at ÖRES // Örö Island, Finland
This April, 3 of our members; Hannah Fletcher, Alice Cazenave and Noora Sandgren are in residence at at ÖRES Residency, located on Örö Island, a former military fortress island in the Archipelago National Park of Finland. The artists-run programme focuses on new and experimental fields of art, art-science collaborations and interdisciplinary projects.
They are using the month there to research low-toxicity and enviromentally friendly photographic processes that can be done using the limited resources the Island has to offer. To collate all of the research, they will be producing a locally riso-printed zine. Enabling the information and knowledge of materials, processes and ideas, to be shared with and used by locals and visitors of the region.
