ROOM 09

Using rejected chemistry from colour developing processes to extract the final light before it goes into recycling, alongside contaminated London clay, these abstract chemigrams are actions fixed onto paper, like choreographic scores or dance compositions. Acting as a record of the material used as well as the dance that happens in the darkroom while making them. Photography has a fixation on permanence unlike any other art form. The London Alternative Photography Collective questions if it is wiser to create recyclable yet impermanent work in an era of biodegradable materials. A reinvented exhibition originally staged at FORMAT15, Unstable/ Sustainable in 2021 features works produced using only sustainable processes.

Photographic fixer is commonly made of sodium thiosulfate and ammonium thiosulfate. A standard application of thiosulfate based fixative on photographic paper is at a ration of either 1:4 or 1:9, for a time of 2 - 10 depending on the type of photographic paper and individual preferences. If inadequately fixed, undeveloped, light sensitive silver halides remain in the paper. These silver halides will continue to absorb light and change colour with the continued exposure to light. Given the undesirable environmental implications of a thiosulfate based fixative, working in a materially conscious way, is it possible to reduce the volume of fixative used? Taking a slower, more conscious approach to making photographic images, by increasing the duration of the paper in the fixative can we can increase the dilution, consequently reducing the volume of chemistry. Grid charting duration and dilution of thiosulfate based fixative on Clay based lumen print. Photography has a fixation on permanence unlike any other art form. The London Alternative Photography Collective questions if it is wiser to create recyclable yet impermanent work in an era of biodegradable materials. A reinvented exhibition originally staged at FORMAT15, Unstable/ Sustainable in 2021 features works produced using only sustainable processes.

This series records the visual metamorphosis that occurs on the light sensitive surface of paper that is sensitized with cyanotype chemistry. Manipulated through the use of natural materials such as salts, water and sand, the un-developed and unfixed print remains reactive to light and the elements. Photography has a fixation on permanence unlike any other art form. The London Alternative Photography Collective questions if it is wiser to create recyclable yet impermanent work in an era of biodegradable materials. A reinvented exhibition originally staged at FORMAT15, Unstable/ Sustainable in 2021 features works produced using only sustainable processes.

Melanie has produced a lumen print of the Full Moon, using salt and ocean water from her home of Ramsgate. Melanie used salt water to semi-stabilise the image in place of standard photographic fixative. Microbes within the seawater were allowed to consume the gelatin present upon the surface of the paper. Salt crystals have formed on the print as it lay in salty ocean water over a course of 24 hours. These interactions have formed inconsistencies within the image. The print will continue to evolve throughout the course of the exhibition. This work highlights the Moons’ connection to the ocean, as the Moon pulls upon the oceanic tides of the Earth. Over millennia, these tides have contributed to the evolution of humanity. The ocean also has an intrinsic connection to analogue photography, as ultimately, substances that are poured down the drain have the potential to reach the sea. Photography has a fixation on permanence unlike any other art form. The London Alternative Photography Collective questions if it is wiser to create recyclable yet impermanent work in an era of biodegradable materials. A reinvented exhibition originally staged at FORMAT15, Unstable/ Sustainable in 2021 features works produced using only sustainable processes.

“And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; And thereby hangs a tale.” From As You Like It, William Shakespeare First shown in the exhibition Unstable, FORMAT Festival 2015 this online presentation of the print will slowly reveal its current state of decomposition. To make an Anthotype you need plant matter and sunlight. Dye is extracted from Petals, leaves, fruits or vegetables, paper is coated with the dye, a photographic transparency is placed on top of the dyed paper, both are exposed to sunlight that eventually bleaches away areas of colour, resulting in an image. Exposure times range from a few hours to several months. Thus, commitment to making work with this process requires a patient and philosophical approach as Anthotypes are created through an unstoppable process of decay. Impermanence being an integral component of their materiality, a perfectly exposed print presents the capturing of light at its tipping point. This runs counter to the widely-held perception of photographs as reliable containers of memory: the historical marketing claim of Vernacular Photography supply companies who engaged chemically coated pieces of paper as passive collaborators in a conspiracy of co-dependency. My work peels back the layers of this unhealthy relationship, presenting photography not as an act of preserving memories but a performative one of letting go. Photography has a fixation on permanence unlike any other art form. The London Alternative Photography Collective questions if it is wiser to create recyclable yet impermanent work in an era of biodegradable materials. A reinvented exhibition originally staged at FORMAT15, Unstable/ Sustainable in 2021 features works produced using only sustainable processes.

The title of this work references to the Greek word for dialogue. In its ancient etymology, a dialogue is not a calm matter as we usually consider, but it entails a contrast. I have been fascinated by this term as a representation of the human experience with nature: a relationship which swings between conciliation and fight without ever being resolved. This work represents this relationship by documenting the coastline as a space of encounter between the land appropriated by men and the sea, creating a visual narrative of such borderline. The human presence is made visible through our impact on the landscape, deliberately leaving people outside of the images. Photography has a fixation on permanence unlike any other art form. The London Alternative Photography Collective questions if it is wiser to create recyclable yet impermanent work in an era of biodegradable materials. A reinvented exhibition originally staged at FORMAT15, Unstable/ Sustainable in 2021 features works produced using only sustainable processes.

The works from Divisible Remainder are all printed from negatives already in a state of haptic dissolution, the effect of applying concrete to film is corrosive – details are removed from the emulsion, which continues to decompose over time.Installed under red light, these unfixed chemical prints linger at the edges of representation, the threat of disappearance palpable, embodied within this installation. These bloodshot and flashlit visions move us away from human time – the lifespan of images, remains, man’s endeavor – towards geological time – the time of the sea, the cliffs, the earth itself. While the detritus of the anthropocene – not least the carcasses of electronic hardware – leaves irreparable chemical signatures in soil and water, this body of work meditates on a distinct political present and equally, the possibilities of an eon beyond the camera.” - Rowan Lear Photography has a fixation on permanence unlike any other art form. The London Alternative Photography Collective questions if it is wiser to create recyclable yet impermanent work in an era of biodegradable materials. A reinvented exhibition originally staged at FORMAT15, Unstable/ Sustainable in 2021 features works produced using only sustainable processes.

By deconstructing family photos, Marisol Mendez subverts meaning and adds a layer of symbolism. Women are depicted as confronted versions of Mary Magdalene and The Virgin Mary but repossessed to reflect Andean traditions. This project explores the influence of race and religion in shaping the perception and white-washed, phallocentric representation of Bolivian women.

"I ran across landmines and frozen rivers at night to reach the South" Noh Cheol-min is a North Korean solider who escaped to South Korea by crossing the DMZ.

"I crossed the river to China out of despair and starvation" Lee Ga-yeon is a North Korean defector. In George Orwell’s 1984, an unperson is someone who has been vaporized, whose record has been erased. Similarly, the North Korean defectors in this work have decided to disappear, fleeing for ideological reasons and often out of despair. To reflect this incredible transition, Tim Franco shares the negative of a polaroid, each portrait exists with the story of defection. The road to South Korea is dangerous and can take years, across the many different borders, with the fear of being arrested and sent to labor camps. On arrival in South Korea, defectors struggle to find a new identity, lost between their North Korean past and South Korean future.

A doorway indicating the entrance of Chiang Khong Thailand near the Mekong river across from Laos. Thailand is the most popular destination for North Korean defectors who are willing to reach the south with Bangkok recognizing their status.

"After watching illegal South Korean drams, I wanted to become a celebrity" Han Song-i / North Korean Defector.

"I spent 10 years being a political prison guard and escaped before being thrown in one" Ahn Myeong-cheol / North Korean defector.

Guilin is one of the many Chinese cities crossed by North Korean defectors on their way To Thailand

Barbewires accross a South Korean beach of the east coast near the North Korean border.

Workers finishing their shift in a chemical factory of Hamhung, North Korea

Gangnam district in Seoul, South Korea

The Gobi desert defines most of the border areas between China and Mongolia. North Korean defectors looking for refuge in Mongolia have to cross the border lines in the desert at night.

A destroyed bridge between North Korea in China across the Yalu river. The river is frozen during most of the winter month and allows safe passage for the defectors

Tony Kemplen has been collecting cameras for over 50 years and in 2010 he decided to start using them. For a decade, he used a different film camera each week of the year - 522 cameras in 10 years. Since 2011 he has written a monthly column about the project for Amateur Photographer Magazine, so the exhibition straddles the worlds of contemporary art and amateur photography. The cameras and the photos represent a wide range of cameras, techniques and subjects, and Tony’s approach to image making is every bit as important as the technical aspects of the project. The exhibition will comprise a selection of the photographs and the corresponding cameras used to make them. The cameras range in age from 10 to 100 years and in size from a large format Thornton Pickard Reflex down to a Minox sub-miniature spy camera. There are well known models and some esoteric cameras which viewers are unlikely to have seen before. The physical exhibition of 52 Cameras in 52 Weeks by Tony Kemplen will be show at ArtCore in Derby city centre. Artcore is a visual arts charity with bases on Charnwood Street, and at Artcore Gallery which opened in August 2019 on Albert Street in the City Centre, which will host 52 Cameras in 52 Weeks. Artcore works with communities locally, nationally and internationally, operating as a cultural hub, fuelling active engagement for a diverse range of communities in Derby, the East Midlands and beyond. Through its creative work it is committed to bringing change into the lives of people of all ages, abilities, cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Artcore is also an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation.

In August 2017, 723,000 Rohingyas fled from genocide in Myanmar to Bangladesh. Together with influxes of 1970’s through the 1980s and 1990s, this recent wave almost completely uprooted them from Myanmar. Overnight, Cox’s Bazaar became one of the largest refugee concentrations in the world. Rohingyas have lost their homes, rights and identity and have suffered unimaginable violence. Traveling back and forth to the camps with a box camera, Shahria Sharmin spent months making portraits of Rohingya youths and listening to their stories of home, where they hope to return one day. The result is a complex of portraits and personal testimonies.

In August 2017, 723,000 Rohingyas fled from genocide in Myanmar to Bangladesh. Together with influxes of 1970’s through the 1980s and 1990s, this recent wave almost completely uprooted them from Myanmar. Overnight, Cox’s Bazaar became one of the largest refugee concentrations in the world. Rohingyas have lost their homes, rights and identity and have suffered unimaginable violence. Traveling back and forth to the camps with a box camera, Shahria Sharmin spent months making portraits of Rohingya youths and listening to their stories of home, where they hope to return one day. The result is a complex of portraits and personal testimonies.

In August 2017, 723,000 Rohingyas fled from genocide in Myanmar to Bangladesh. Together with influxes of 1970’s through the 1980s and 1990s, this recent wave almost completely uprooted them from Myanmar. Overnight, Cox’s Bazaar became one of the largest refugee concentrations in the world. Rohingyas have lost their homes, rights and identity and have suffered unimaginable violence. Traveling back and forth to the camps with a box camera, Shahria Sharmin spent months making portraits of Rohingya youths and listening to their stories of home, where they hope to return one day. The result is a complex of portraits and personal testimonies.

In August 2017, 723,000 Rohingyas fled from genocide in Myanmar to Bangladesh. Together with influxes of 1970’s through the 1980s and 1990s, this recent wave almost completely uprooted them from Myanmar. Overnight, Cox’s Bazaar became one of the largest refugee concentrations in the world. Rohingyas have lost their homes, rights and identity and have suffered unimaginable violence. Traveling back and forth to the camps with a box camera, Shahria Sharmin spent months making portraits of Rohingya youths and listening to their stories of home, where they hope to return one day. The result is a complex of portraits and personal testimonies.

In August 2017, 723,000 Rohingyas fled from genocide in Myanmar to Bangladesh. Together with influxes of 1970’s through the 1980s and 1990s, this recent wave almost completely uprooted them from Myanmar. Overnight, Cox’s Bazaar became one of the largest refugee concentrations in the world. Rohingyas have lost their homes, rights and identity and have suffered unimaginable violence. Traveling back and forth to the camps with a box camera, Shahria Sharmin spent months making portraits of Rohingya youths and listening to their stories of home, where they hope to return one day. The result is a complex of portraits and personal testimonies.

Infrastructures is a research-based photo project about the Russian and post-Soviet political economy, created in 2016-2019 by Sergey Novikov and Max Sher. Using documentary and staged photography, as well as writing, they look at and reflect on the political and cultural significance of both the physical infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, pipelines, etc., and 'infrastructure' of thinking, discourse, and control that historically underpin the functioning of the State and power. The artists thus take on the role of culture critics to call into question the oft-simplistic but still dominating visual and conceptual tropes about the post-Soviet area. The holistic project consists of 50 chapters (of which 19 are presented in this submission), each with photographs and an essay (in Russian and English) written by artists themselves. By combining photographs and writing, Novikov and Sher also explore complex relationships and roles of photography and text within one body of work. The 360-page photobook 'Infrastructures" has been self-published in late 2019 under the artists' own micro-publishing brand RecurrentBooks with the support of the Heinrich Böll Foundation. The project's dedicated website with a selection of full chapters as well as book images, installation photos and events can be found at http://infrastructur.es/en

Infrastructures is a research-based photo project exploring the Russian and post-Soviet political economy. Using documentary, staged photography and writing, it reflects on the political and cultural significance of physical infrastructure and the infrastructure of thinking, discourse and control that historically underpin the functioning of State and power.