Beyond Silver
The Hive, Birmingham

Introducing a new exhibition curated by the London Alternative Photography Collective , which celebrates its’ 10th birthday in 2023.

Venue: The Hive, 43-47 Vittoria St, Birmingham, B1 3PE.
Dates:19th January - 06 Feb 2023.
Opening Party 18 January, 6-8pm.

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, Ellisa 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.

Transmutation at The Margate School

Exhibition Open: 12th January 2023 - 19th January 2023, 10am - 4pm

Opening Party: 12 January 2023, 6-8pm. Drinks provided by Mammoth Taproom.

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)

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.

Support Me

Here are a number of ways to support my work:

- Patreon 
- Ko-Fi 
- Visit my store
- Visit the Land Art Collective shop to purchase artworks.

£10+ Patreon subscribers receive a monthly postcard and a monthly digital download. The January 2023 postcard for £10+ Subscribers is: Silver Nitrate and Ascorbic Acid, Microscope Photograph, 2021. The postcard is produced in a square format. This image was produced as part of a collaboration with Dr Leah-Nani Alconcel at the School of Metallurgy and Materials at the University of Birmingham.