2024

METAMORPHOSIS: Innovation in Eco-Photography and Film - Saatchi Gallery, UK

Grafting: The Land and the Artist - Photo 50, London Art Fair, UK

Displace/Disperse - Agitate Gallery, Edinburgh

2023

Climate & Art: Alternative Approaches - Chappe Contemporary Art Museum, Finland

2022

De/composition - Woodend Gallery, UK

ÖRES - Öro island, Finland

2024 

Hong Kong International Photo Festival, Koon Man Space, Hong Kong

2023 - 24

Hooke Park, Architectural Association, UK

2022

ÖRES, Örö island, Finland

2021 - 22

The Photographic Garden, Leeds UK and Online

2020

Test. Grow. Learn. Test Lab, Online

Remove, Rework, Repurpose, Recycle micro-residencies, Online

2019

XYZ Books, Lisboa, Portugal

Photographic Garden Symposium -

On Saturday 24th September 2022, we heard from 8 artists and researchers, whom for the past year had been realising research that links the garden to darkroom practice. This recording is the full symposium with all speakers and the results of their research, from plant-based dyes to water filtration systems.

re·source Book Launch

On 17th July 2022 we hosted a livestream, featuring Svea Josephy/Vanessa Cowling, Steffie de Gaetano, and Meggan Gould as they give insights and previews of their contributions to our third publication re·source, alongside Hannah Fletcher and Edd Carr from The Sustainable Darkroom, discussing the design and formation.

2022-25

As part of a long-term engagement with communities living in the United States, Sustainable Darkroom project lead Alice Cazenave is researching the lives and ecologies  touched by photographic industries. 

​Silver grounds the magic of analogue photography; it is the essential light-sensitive coating of photographic negatives and papers. Silver exists in specific territories and is mobilised across the globe to enable media culture. We live in a critical time where media culture and pollution are affecting people and places in disproportionate ways. This research works to generate a new archive of photography’s history, one that foregrounds links between extractivism, ecological change, and silver.

Engaging with U.S. silver miners, KODAK engineers, conservationists, photographers, and Haudenosaunee peoples, Alice explores how people relate to silver, and how it entangles with their histories, worlds and lives.  

Part of this work involves researching ecologies that have been disturbed to make space for photographic industries. Alice mixes plant-based photographic chemistries using species growing in these spaces. By embedding themselves physically, chemically, and visually into the material base of the photographs, plant photo-chemistries bring ecological narratives into the stories we tell ourselves about photography and its history.​

Fieldwork is centred in historical silver extraction sites, Nevada, and Rochester, New York, home of the Kodak industry.

Alchemistic Photography - James Sewell

During the Photographic Garden residency, James focused on making developers entirely from waste products, such as waste coffee grounds, pond water, and ash from a wood burner. He produced a beautifully detailed alchemical text, showcasing his in-depth research into the subject. Combining drawings, recipes, text, and tests, the work is titled ‘Alchemistic Photography’ and can be viewed via the link.

Constructed Wetlands and Deconstructed Borders - Michaela Davidova

Michaela's research involved looking at different methods for cleaning dirty darkroom water, using certain plants with remediation properties. This led to the construction of several 'constructed wetlands' for darkroom water such as a toilet filled with plants, and a sink.

Michaela also looked at cleaning cyanotype wash water with a homemade filtration device - and more!

Vertotypes - Jonathan Bradley

Jonathan's research looked at creating a plant-based alternative from liquid nettle concentrate, which he dubbed the Vertotype process. Whilst exposures take several hours, it removes the need for cyanotype Part A completely! For more, click the link above.

Mint and Moon - Charlotte Smithson

Charlotte Smithson researched whether the lunar cycle has an effect on her mint plant’s potency when using it as an ingredient to develop photographic film. By regularly testing the same plant, recipe, film, and process at different quarters of the moon’s cycle, Charlotte researched if there will be any noticeable differences to the results.