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.
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, 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
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!
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
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.
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.
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 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
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.
The London Alternative Photography Collective is pleased to announce an online collaboration with Lomography Magazine.
Features
Cutting and Folding With Aliki Braine
Andrés Pardo from CuriosoLab
Dafna Talmor
A workshop in connection with WHAT ON EARTH exhibition, currently on at The Koppel Project Exchange, Piccadilly.
Sat, 24 July 2021
13:00 – 14:30 UK BST
193 Piccadilly, St. James's, London W1J 9EU
London Alternative Photography Collective and The Koppel Project Exchange are excited to welcome Lucy Sabin for a workshop aiming to provide an introduction to urban lichens and recording techniques.
Activities will attune participants to the kinds of conditions to which lichens respond, particularly air pollution. In an artistic way, the workshop will draw upon citizen science resources from the OPAL Air Survey. First you will develop the art of noticing in Green Park, second conduct an artistic survey using creative techniques comparing lichen communities. Third, you will explore microcosms and experience with close-up recording techniques using magnifiers to produce intimate images.
The workshop commences at 1pm at The Koppel Project Exchange and will shortly be followed by a 7min walk to Green Park where the remaining workshop will take place.
All materials provided.
The cost of this workshop goes towards covering material costs.
Lucy Sabin is an artist–researcher whose work explores the interplay between media and environments, with a particular focus on themes of atmospheres and breathing. Her emerging practice has been featured by BBC Radio 4 and BBC Arts. Lucy has also been selected by Arts Council England as an awardee of Developing Your Creative Practice. Drawing upon an MRes in Communication Design from the Royal College of Art, Lucy is undertaking doctoral research in the UCL Department of Geography with support from the London Arts and Humanities Partnership.
WHAT ON EARTH
The Koppel Project Exchange
2 – 25 July 2021
PV 1 July 2021 | 6-9pm
Curated by Ellen Taylor in collaboration with Hannah Fletcher
Exhibiting artists: Victoria Ahrens | Katie Bret-Day | Alice Cazenave | Hannah Fletcher | Ramona Güntert | Melanie King | Liz K Miller | Diego Valente | Marina Vitaglione
WHAT ON EARTH brings together a selection of works exploring how the environmental and sustainability crisis we face today can be both encountered and addressed through non-representational and medium-forward forms. Most photographic responses to the climate crisis take the path of documentation, as there is indeed a lot to document. Photography as an art form, however, has always been more than documentarian, and has always had an impact that derives much of its force from factors other than the subject in the frame. WHAT ON EARTH aims to highlight the work of artists who explore this through non-representational and material forms.
‘The materiality of the photograph takes two broad and interrelated forms. First, it is the plasticity of the image itself, its chemistry, the paper it is printed on, the toning, the resulting surface variations. Such technical and physical choices in making photographs are seldom random (Edwards, E. and Hard, J. 2004).
There have been many theoretical debates regarding the photograph’s status as a three- dimensional object, and craft, as a result of advances in post-and-during-capture digital manipulation technology. Through the creation of ‘concrete photography’ this show aims to explore this whilst also demonstrating how the materiality of a photograph can, though the image making process, be both influenced by our culture’s environment and act as a visual representation. In the context of the environmental crisis we face in today’s society, these exhibiting artists use elements from our rapidly changing environment to inform their image making process, both physically and conceptually.
The artists featured in WHAT ON EARTH use a range of methods and materials derived from the traditional photographic process but developing it to a more tangible and materialistic one, investigating how a combination of visual, audio, tactile, olfactory stimuli can enhance our connection to our environment. This approach to working with materials, and the respect we gain for our environment through the process of touch, is a philosophy that should not be limited to the hand of the artist, but should be normalised within our culture. As it is through this tactility and engagement of the senses that we truly start to understand the earth that we live on and live with.
The Koppel Project Exchange
193 Piccadilly
London W1J 9EU
An online talk by Rebecca Najdowski & Rhona Eve Clews, which explores entanglement between humans, nature & photographic materiality.
Sun, 23 May 2021
12:00 – 15:00 BST
Online via Zoom.
Tickets - Pay as you feel.
About this event
An online talk by Rebecca Najdowski & Rhona Eve Clews, which explores entanglement between humans, nature & photographic materiality.
Rebecca Najdowski
Rebecca Najdowski is a Melbourne-based artist whose work engages with the material and political implications of representing nature through photographic technologies. By focusing on optics, light, minerals, time, and chemical and digital interactions, her projects embody such essential components of photomedia in order to expose the conditions of representation. Rebecca’s work has addressed desert ecology, botanical specimens, natural phenomena like the sun, geothermal activity, and rain, and imaginings of the universe. She holds a PhD from Victorian College of the Arts (University of Melbourne) and an MFA from California College of the Arts.
"Based on recent practice-led PhD research, this talk delves into artwork that addresses how nature is envisioned through photography, video, and scanning technology. With a focus on material agency, my practice looks at how humans, nature, and photomedia technology are inherently entangled. In this talk, I will highlight projects made by directly exposing photo-materials to natural phenomena like geothermal activity, photographs created through haptic manipulations of conventional landscape imagery, and digital 3D scans of flora. My aim through this work is to undermine the limiting features of photomedia — to draw attention to them — to open up new perspectives on nature."
Rhona Eve Clews
"Whether melting my body into the innards of my home photocopier, filming erupting geyser postcards found on eBay or crawling on my belly to enter macro-pollen perspectives, I will discuss the myriad experimental photographic approaches I use to collapse ecological distance. Drawing on my training as psychologist and psychic, I re-situate photography into an expanded, eco-feminist somatic practice, led by feeling, sensation and mutuality. From converting night back into darkroom to cuddling my limbs with light-sensitive materials, my talk reclaims the photographic as a dynamic space for spontaneous human/more-than-human exchange.
My creative practice draws upon my past of growing up a hippie to generate understanding between human and more-than-human worlds. Working across writing, photography, performance, and film, I blend eco-feminisms with fiction, humour, SF and trauma theory. Enacting my longing for planetary interconnectedness through absurd quests I rub-up-against and clamber inside other ‘bodies’ I encounter, merging human, non-human, cosmos and ecology. With a dual background in Psychology and Photography I am an MFA graduate from Slade School of Fine Art and a Healer/Therapist specialising in Trauma and Addiction. I exhibit widely, co-curate and teach expanded photography, poetry, and writing."
Ryan Moule
Unstable/Sustainable is a re-invented exhibition. It was originally staged at Format Festival by the London Alternative Photography Collective in 2015. This earlier exhibition included a number of photographic works, which gradually changed chemically during the course of the exhibition.
For the 2021 edition of Unstable at Format Festival, all exhibited works will be produced using sustainable photographic processes. Within the LAPC’s Sustainable Darkroom research project, we have been working with a number of ephemeral photography processes which are notoriously difficult to fix.
Photography has a fixation with permanence, which doesn’t exist to the same degree within other art forms. Now that photography is becoming more of an interdisciplinary field, is it always necessary to stabilise our images? In this new era of biodegradable materials, is it not more sensible to create work that can be recycled?
Dates for Online Exhibition: March 12, 2021 to March 23, 2023
Dates for Physical Exhibition: May 17, 2021 to June 13, 2021
Venue: The Small Print Company, Friary Villas 2-3 Friary Street Derby, DE1 1JF
Artists:
Noemi Filetti
Chloe Obermeyer
Hannah Fletcher
Melanie King
Diego Valente
Nettie Edwards
Ryan Moule
Kim Conway
Thursday, 25 Feb 2021
18:30 – 20:00 GMT
Tickets.
The London Alternative Photography Collective invite you to a talk which discusses the relevance of collaborative and cross-disciplinary modes of working when thinking about a sustainable and conscious creative practice. Joined by Jemma Foster, Laura Copsey and Emily Rudge, a collaborative trio coming from different disciplines. They share knowledge and skills that cover - botany, astro-herbalism, photography, film, music and art therapy.
Laura, Emily and Jemma met in 2019 and share an interest in the alchemy of plants and their potential within creative processes. After taking part in LAPC’s 2020 Sustainable Darkroom, they since formed a collective, working out of the Wild Alchemy Lab and taking part in various workshops and residencies.
Their ongoing research into camera-less photography explores eco-developers and fixatives to “draw with light” made with organic plant-based eco developers, fixatives and natural inks to create bespoke artefact images. Their intention is to showcase alternative photosensitive ingredients - ie. rose-hip, sea buckthorn and seaweed - (used to replace traditional processing chemicals). They have a particular interest in creating sensory experiences using edible items that also have image making potential. Running workshops that involve experimental camera-less photography combined with taster menu's and bespoke drinks as an accompaniment made from the ingredients used to create visual responses that document the experience.
Their ingredients are often foraged and seasonal, taking inspiration from the alchemical elements, the tarot and the stars. They believe in the magical properties of plants and nature as their guide to navigating an uncertain future. They hope to inspire people to create art sustainably and in symbiosis with the natural world.
Donations welcome which go directly to the speakers.
Sun, 31 January 2021
16:00 – 19:45 GMT
Tickets.
The London Alternative Photography Collective invite you to their 2021 Symposium which discusses environmental considerations and approaches to working with experimental cinema. We will explore developments in non-toxic photochemical processes, the use of celluloid in a sustainable filmmaking practice and the relationship between the garden and the darkroom. Throughout, discussing the aesthetic and visual implications of these techniques, processes and materials.
Panel of speakers:
General Treegan (aka Andrés Pardo)
Dagie Brundert
Joanna Mayes
Kim Knowles
Phillip Hoffman
Ricardo Leite
Chaired by Hannah Fletcher
General Treegan aka Andrés Pardo runs a film lab in Mexico called Curioso Lab. It is a space for photochemical exploration, specialising in cinematography. His research focuses on non-traditional development processes, most recently he has been working on an 100% home made film developer for black and white film. Based on clementine peels and potash, he has labeled it as ‘SIMPLE’ developer. He is in the process of studying the performance and possibilities of this developer of 16mm and 35mm film.
Dagie Brundert is an artist from Berlin, who has worked with super 8 film for almost half of her life – short films, experimental films – and for about a decade now she has developed her films using eco friendly materials.
Joanna Mayes is a film artist who explores the experience of being in a location at a particular time through the medium of film. Bringing her experience of musical improvisation into her practice, Joanna opens her work up to chance through hand processing and the use of organic materials, to create short film-poems that reverberate between abstraction and control. She represents place through a layering of approaches to materiality: analogue film responds to the light in that place and time, physical outcomes are often charged with atmosphere from the site through use of materials of the locality, such as seawater for processing and lichen & berries for tinting the film.
Kim Knowles lectures in Alternative and Experimental Film at Aberystwyth University in Wales and curates the Black Box experimental strand at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Her recent monograph Experimental Film and Photochemical Practices (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) assesses the contemporary relevance of film in the digital era and draws on theories of new materialism, ecocriticism and posthumanism. She has published widely on contemporary and historical forms of avant-garde filmmaking, as well as crossovers with other arts such as photography, architecture, poetry and dance. She is co-editor (with Marion Schmid) of the forthcoming collection Cinematic Intermediality: Theory and Practice (Edinburgh University Press, 2021).
Philip Hoffman has been the artistic director of the Independent Imaging Retreat (Film Farm) since 1994; a 1 week workshop in artisanal filmmaking in Mount Forest, Ontario. Currently Hoffman teaches in the Cinema and Media Arts Department at York University and his new film, vulture, uses several processing methods including flower/plant hand-processing. The film received the Kodak Cinematic Award at the Ann Arbor Film Festival in 2019.
Ricardo Leite is a Portuguese film director, working mainly in Experimental and Documentary genres. Has been working in biodegradable and non toxic chemistry processes since 2012, and presented his hydrogen peroxide / citric acid bleach in reversal caffenol process in TIE Festival in colorado in 2013. The majority of his analog films are hand-developed in his laboratory.
Hannah Fletcher is a London based artist, working with cameraless photographic processes, Co-director of London Alternative Photography Collective and a facilitator of sustainability within the arts. She initiated The Sustainable Darkroom, an artist-run research, training and mutual learning programme, to equip cultural practitioners with new skills and knowledge to develop an environmentally friendly photographic darkroom practice. Taking its form in publications, residencies, workshops, talks, symposiums and training sessions. She intends to lead a movement in challenging the environmental impact and sustainability of darkroom practices.
Header Image: General Treegan
Join the London Alternative Photography Collective to discuss the links between experimental photography and ecologies which are on the move
Sun, 22 November 2020
17:30 – 19:00 GMT
Tickets.
The London Alternative Photography Collective invite you to a talk which discusses how cultural conceptions of climate change can be understood through the lens of experimental photography. We will explore the relationships between the materiality of photography and landscape and discuss the ways in which in nature not only informs the visual content of photography, but becomes part of the process of image-making.
How can experimental photographic processes be used to understand cultural conceptions of climate change? How are climate change discourses received or rejected?
How can photography adapt to different spaces or exist as a form of camouflage? What are the narratives held within photography's materiality?
Speakers
Flora Mary Bartlett is a photographer and visual anthropologist based in Stockholm. She works with alternative photographic processes in her research on landscape, climate change, and place in Northern Sweden. She is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at Goldsmiths, where she also received her PhD in 2020.
Ramona Güntert, (b. 1989) is a German artist based in London. Her practice looks at forms and shapes within nature which are mimicked by bodies of human and animals. She uses the medium of photography, challenging its existence in print and exploring different material conditions. Her work is constantly transforming and adapting to different spaces, just like camouflage, which emphasises the relationship between the body and its environment but also attempts to question what lies in-between these spaces. These images appear in layers, becoming the skin of the space.
Her work was exhibited in group shows at COOP UNSEEN with London Alternative Photography Collective and as part of Parallel Platform she was exhibiting at Format Festival, Derby, Triennale der Photographie, Hamburg, Landskronafoto, and Organ Vida, Zagreb.
She worked in collaborations with other artists as part of Peckham 24 and Irruptive Chora at Chalton Gallery in London. Her work was featured in Der Greif, Tjejland, Skin and Blister, Photomonitor and nominated for the Magnum Graduate Award 2017 and part of the Fotomuseum Plattform, Winterthur 2019.
Alice Cazenave (b. 1990) is a photographer working in plant-based and experimental processes. She is undertaking a PhD in Visual Anthropology at Goldsmiths. Her research project explores how threatening and changing ecologies in Meghalaya, north-east India, are affecting cultural identity amongst the Khasi community. She works at the intersection of experimental photography and anthropology and investigates how both disciplines can inform each other. Her photographic experiments into pelargonium printing have been featured in The British Journal of Photography, The Guardian and as part of an artbook: PLANT: Exploring The Botanical World. She has also been published in the New York Times and has taken part in exhibitions in the UK and abroad.
Image courtesy of Dr Flora Bartlett
As part of our programme for In & of the Land, exhibiting at this years Brighton Photo Fringe, we ran a series of workshops. On a beautiful autunm afternoon, exploring the natural and human habitats of Brighton's seafront, LAPC member, Antonia Beard lead a socially distanced workshop. Using the cyanotype process, recycled textiles and found materials, Antonia lead a collaborative exchange between the group, thier environment and material surroundings.
Venue: Phoenix Art Space, Brighton. Brighton Photo Fringe
Dates: 3-31 October 2020
Events: TBC
'In & Of the Land’ is an exhibition and series of public events focusing on photographic work created in a way that both represents and looks after the landscape.
Exhibiting in the Phoenix Gallery during this years Photo Fringe, Bryony Good and Eileen White are showing work exploring their respective local landscapes of Brighton and Winchester. The works have been printed specifically for this exhibition using natural printing processes, ground pigments from the earth and plant based photographic developers.
To coincide with this work, our online exhibition includes the work of Hannah Fletcher, Matt Slater, Melanie King and Nettie Edwards, who are contributing to the 'In & Of the Land' series of workshops and talks.
'In & Of the Land' explores human narratives embedded in the natural world. It seeks to question our role as stewards of this earth and the way we represent the the land we stand on.
