The Handmade Darkroom: Te Whanganui-a-Tara Sustainable Photography Collective
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In February of 2023 Belinda Whitta and Samson Dell brought the handmade darkroom out of their notebooks, and into reality!
Our first public facing events were a series of four workshops within the exhibition Susurrations, a Women in Photography NZ + AU in-person event. We invited local Te Whanganui-a-Tara artists to learn how to develop film with caffenol, create lumen prints and cyanotypes, and eco-toning for cyanotype!
At the 2023 Newtown Festival, Samson and I printed the individual frames for a moving image piece, that both showed sustainable and alternative processes within the imagery, and the printing process.
In September of 2023, we launched a Patreon, that offers our community an opportunity to support us, and in return receive monthly content. This is designed to expand your photographic practice with more sustainable and alternative processes. This begins at just $20NZD + sales tax, per month. You can visit our Patreon dashboard here.
Alongside Virginia Woods-Jack, curator and founder of Women in Photography NZ + AU, we have created monthly meet-ups in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington. These meet-ups are intended to form a community of sharing and supporting!
Event Photographs by Jas Sabrine for our cyanotype workshop, within Susurrations; a Women in Photography NZ + AU in-person event.
a palmful of water is the weaving together of photographic works by a collection of artists using alternative or sustainable analogue photography.
Artists Virginia Woods-Jack, Chloe Mason, Jonathan Kay, Moana Lee, Jan Larcombe, Samson Dell, Lily Dowd, and Belinda Whitta have each reflected on and illustrated a different facet of their personal connection with water.
Water offers many points in which to connect and muse upon. It is the body that holds our knowledge and memory. Water carries us to our homelands. We see these artists use water as a lens in which they see the world, a place to belong, or a means for connection. As a reminder to remain fluid, to challenge rigid tradition, and see the fleeting nature in time.
These artists have made alongside earth and water, whether through the realisation of the photograph, the development process, the fluidity, seasonality and queer timeline of the earth, or somestimes water even gifted them the image.
This exhibition is brought to you by The Handmade Darkroom: Te Whanganui-a-Tara Sustainable Photography Collective, and co-curated by Lily Dowd and Belinda Whitta. The Handmade Darkroom brings sustainable, alternative, and cameraless analogue photography processes and methodologies to their community, based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara and beyond.
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