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ANALOGUE ANCIENTS
Using eco photography to record ancient sites and rites.
Extract from ‘Coating’ exhibition text.
Many of us are drawn to ancient standing stones. Planted in the earth and rising from the ground, these lumps of solid matter stand as evidence of a persistent need for interconnectedness that stretches across millennia; an ancient gesture, at once lost and found. Encountering these stones today offers a glimpse into the lives of past people, whilst the sense of mystery surrounding them makes them a screen onto which we can project meaning. The monochrome analogue prints on display here show charismatic stone circles and ancient sites found in the South West, photographed as souvenirs of a time when land-person relationships were closer, and knowledge about the edibility of plants was commonplace.
The two contact-print images in this exhibition were created using the anthotype process — the most basic and low-impact way of producing photographs. These coloured, shadowy images are made by first coating paper with a homemade plant-based emulsion, before placing an object or image on top, and then exposing the paper to sunlight. These fugitive prints continue to disappear as they are being viewed.
The darkroom — a glowing nostalgic cave and shrine to another era of image-making — is a place where we can experience photography’s materiality and alchemical magic. Homemade developers made with polyphenols, chlorophyll and tannins coax images to the surface on out-of-date mineral coatings.
Weeds are tested for their capability to produce ecologically safer solutions, where the outcomes are variable, messy and often impermanent. Unbound by formal representation, this kind of analogue photography offers a freedom to muddy the images with plant residue and colour stains.
Together, these processes address the materiality of image making in an eco-anxious time. Scavenged vegetation, outdoor contexts and ancient motifs reflect the ways in which yearly cycles are still marked. Sabbats, circles for feasts, rituals, and contemplation; all invitations to embrace light leaks, dark nights, sparkling days, impermanence, glow, dust, dirt and re-loved material, as we try to find the route back to understanding ecology.