Press release:

Metals and minerals are of the earth - extracted, purified, dried, cut, molded, extruded, dissolved, and filtered. Photographic images are of the earth, they are metals and minerals, polished, coated, sensitised, exposed, developed, washed, fixed, and 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 presents “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 shine 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

Text: Hannah Fletcher

Two halves make a whole

Cameraless copper emulsion print.This image was created using copper sourced from a small piece of pipe.(unique)

20cm x 20cm

2022

Two halves make a whole II

Cameraless Sequoiadendron emulsion print (unique)

10cm x 10cm

2022

Argon tree

Sequoiadendron emulsion print (unique)

10cm x 10cm

2022

In 2020 I began to seriously pursue an alternative to silver-based photography. The reaction between iron and oak-based material was my starting point.

My subject is photography and its complicated existence in the 21st century, foreshadowing our human existence.

My typical way of working involves creating photographic emulsions from scratch in my studio. Experimenting with plant-based emulsions and new 21st-century substrates l work in untested territories of the photographic medium. I research and employ new substrates for light-sensitive emulsions to adhere. I play with long exposures and ways of slowing photographic processes down to original invention speeds. These photographic objects are the story — they index photography and its 21st-century state which is slippery and without boundary.

My practice seeks to address a new photography; one without silver or plastic at its core. By turning away from the traditional ingredients of photography, I am ‘making’ contemporary light-sensitive images that reference photography’s history and yet carry an environmental message.