Elemental Landscapes Exhibition
Crealde School of Art & Analog Film Photography Association

I am pleased to be showing work at the Elemental Landscapes exhibition at Crealde School of Art with the Analog Film Photography Association.

On View: October 20, 2023 – January 20, 2024
Opening Reception: Friday, October 20 | 7–9pm
Showalter Hughes Community Gallery, Orlando, USA.

“Presented in partnership with the Analog Film Photography Association and curated by Jacob Rodriguez, “Elemental Landscapes” is the inaugural exhibition of the Womyn’s Alternative Photography Society International, a collective focused on the intersection of alternative photography, science, and materiality. The collective offers a new perspective on alternative photography, aiming to promote female and non- binary artists who are working with analogue and experimental photographic processes. The artists featured are Sandra Davis from Philadelphia, PA, Rachel Guardiola from Massapequa, NY, Melanie King from London, UK, and Dale Rio from the Northeastern US.

With each artist utilizing a different approach and methodology, the work in this exhibition revisits the tradition of landscape photography and explores the ways in which the landscape can provide commentary on photography’s relationship with the elemental. This aspect of the elemental is manifested in the work both literally – through the metal salts incorporated into the various processes – and conceptually – through the foundational relationship between humanity and the natural world, for instance – and provides the tie that binds the work together. It is explored at various levels, as if through the lenses of both microscopes and telescopes and the eyes of both the humble and grand.”

FRACTURE
THE EYES MAG LAUNCH
LA COMÈTE BOOK SHOP & PARIS PHOTO 

I have some images and text included in ‘FRACTURE’, the latest issue of The Eyes Publishing guest curated by Chloe Dewe Matthews. I will be at the launch at La Comète Book Shop, Paris on 09 November, and at Paris Photo on 10 November. 

“”For its 14th issue, entitled FRACTURE, Chloe Dewe Mathews invites the readers to explore the intimate link between photography, nature and environmental destruction, to take the time to pause, look, think, experiment and perhaps even act.

Conceived as a humble act of resistance, FRACTURE offers some insights and food for thought, so that we can contribute, in our own way, to the slow transformation of the thudding climate crisis into collective action.

(out on November 14th 2023 – Preview at Paris Photo).”

Spectrum Miami Exhibition
Analog Film Photography Association

I wil be showing two daguerreotypes from my Precious Metals project at Spectrum Miami during Art Basel Miami 2023, with the Analog Film Photography Association from 6-10 December 2023.

Glacial Movements and The Ghaib Exhibition
Canterbury Christ Church University

I am exhibiting photographs produced in chai tea film developer, in the Glacial Movements and the Ghaib exhibition at the Daphne Oram Gallery, at Canterbury Christ Church University.

The exhibition is open until Tuesday 9 January 2024.

Open Monday – Friday, 10am – 4pm
Closed for Christmas  Friday 22 December to Friday 5 January

Glacial Movements and the Ghaib explores the history and politics of water bodies. It considers the flow of water, fluidity and how water interacts with the land. The project contemplates the precarity and beauty of vast natural formations such as glaciers and rivers.

The exhibition, resulting from an all-female expedition that took place in September 2022 by members of Lumen Studios and Pak Khawateen Painting Club, will feature art works produced on that expedition including journals, videos, sound, photography and painting.

The expedition focused on some of the largest glaciers in Pakistan, which are continuously shifting and changing shape. The glaciers are also a water source for rivers in south Asia, and form part of the ‘Third Pole,’ one of the largest ice reserves in the world. The collectives visited four of the glaciers in Hunza district, named Passu, Shishper, Battura and Gulkin. In addition to visiting the glaciers, the collectives explored local towns that are directly affected by glacial lake outbursts and rely on them for a water source.

The collectives have been influenced by the work of James C Scott: a text focused on Zornia, a region between the mountains of Cambodia and Afghanistan. This area was a place for refuge from repressive states. These communities migrated to the mountains to remain stateless, and resist falling into the trap of slavery, working to produce and toil on the land of agrarian states. In contrast to this, the mountains housed small egalitarian communities.

The Glacial Movements and the Ghaib (Ghaib is the Urdu word for Unseen) project shows the precarity and beauty of living with glaciers. While these mountains are no longer spaces of refuge, they have developed into tourist destinations, which has brought exponential wealth with the price of climate change and global warming.

The expedition was funded by the British Council’s ‘New Perspectives 75 Years of Pakistan’. Versions of this exhibition have been shown at VM Gallery Karachi, Tagh’eer Lahore and COMSATS University, Islamabad in Pakistan. This is the first exhibition produced from the expedition within the United Kingdom and has been curated by Melanie King and Paul Russell.

About Pak Khawateen Painting Club & Lumen Studios

Lumen is an art collective, focused on themes of astronomy, light and ecology. Through art commissions, exhibitions, and seminars, we aim to raise a dialogue about how humanity understands existence.

Pak Khawateen Painting Club is focused on the history and politics of water bodies, flow of water, fluidity, bodies blocking water and bodies moving along water.

Artists

Amna Hashmi / Saba Khan / Saulat Ajmal / Zohreen Murtaza / Louise Beer / Melanie King / Rebecca Huxley

Submerged Landscapes’
Ramsgate Recorder

I have a small feature about seaweed film developer and my Submerged Landscapes project in the next issue of Ramsgate Recorder , launching at Penelope Ramsgate on Thursday 09 November 6-9pm.

According to the Climate Central app, Thanet, UK is likely to become an island again within the next decade. Submerged Landscapes is a project where I document the affected areas before they are submerged, using the materiality of the sea within the production of the work. To produce these images, I have used film developer made from bladderwrack seaweed. The recipe was originally developed during an online Sustainable Darkroom residency in 2020.

I hope to continue this project this month, trying out a new seaweed developer alongside my large format camera.

Newly Completed Work
Acquaintance

In October 2023, I completed Acquaintance, a period of creative exploration made possible by a ’Developing Your Creative Practice’ grant supported by Arts Council England and Patreon subscribers.

Acquaintance explored the creative possibilities of botanical cyanotype toning and sustainable photographic processes. This exploration considered how location-specific sustainable photographic processes can produce bodies of work that are materially connected to the landscape. This project was centred on the Peak District and surrounding areas, close to where I grew up. I was not able to regularly access this landscape as a working class young person living in Manchester. This enquiry allowed me to become reacquainted with the landscape, through the lens of photography and through the material engagement with plants identified in the environments I visited.

I am now looking for opportunities to exhibit this body of work.

Online Workshops 
Land Art Agency

I am leading two online workshops with the Land Art Agency in 2023. I will then take a break from running workshops for the forseeable future.

16 November 6pm UK Time: Plant Based Film Developer
10 December 10am UK Time: Cyanotype and Botanical Toning

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