July 2018 has been an incredibly busy month, running activities as part of my solo show at Photofusion, but also teaching my regular courses at the Victoria and Albert Museum. 

This month I’ll be showing my series Growing Concerns at Photofusion in Brixton.

 Exhibition dates: 27th of June - the 28th of July. Monday to Saturday 10:30 – 17:30

Growing Concerns focuses on the subject of migration making a link between the deregulation of goods and capitals and the increasing barriers for movement of people. The series uses plants from Asia and the Caribbean Islands, but nonetheless widely available at daily markets in London, to print images directly on the plant leaves by means of the organic process of chlorophyll printing. 

 The images reflect on the postcolonial relationship between these countries and the UK, featuring press cuts from The Sun, The Daily Mirror, The Times and The Economist, as well as images from private and public archives. 

This show is being kindly supported by the Arts Council England, as well as by the London Flower School, Photofusion and the London Alternative Photography Collective. 

Thanks to the funding received two panel discussions where organised, you can access the recordings here: 

- In conversation with Martin Barnes, Senior Curator of Photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum and Brandei Estes, Head of the Department of Photographs at Sotheby’s, to discuss how museums, collectors and auction houses display, collect and sell artwork made with organic materials. We discussed the restrictions and strengths of this type of artwork.

- In conversation with Karin Bareman and Javier Hirschfeld Moreno on decolonial and empowering approaches to the photographic medium.

As part of the Victorian Giants exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, I was invited to take up residence to create unique individual tintype portraits. 

Documenting photos and behind-the-scenes video by Chelin Miller.  

I have also been commissioned by Bow Arts to produce a 17 meters wide mural series of tintype portraits as part of the London Festival of Architecture. The commission celebrates the identity of Royal Albert Wharf and its community. This project will act as a precursor to my main residency starting later in the year, forging relationships with the residents, RAW studio artists and RAW Labs visitors.

This month I have been awarded a professional development bursary from a-n. The bursary will support a self-directed research on the chlorophyll printing process. It will enable me to independently learn in my studio an organic photographic method and to make videos to disseminate knowledge of this little-known printing technique. See more info about the grant on this link. 

The chlorophyll printing process occurs naturally in plants in the same way we change pigments when we are exposed to different levels of sunlight. Just as our clothes might leave a mark on our skin in the summer, the image above shows an Aloe Vera plant in Tenerife, in which the silhouettes of the outer leaves of the plant are recorded onto the inner leaves.

See more on the chlorophyll printing process on my a-n blog! 

I was commissioned by National Portrait Gallery to produce a video demonstrating my practice with the wet collodion and albumen printing processes as part of the Victorian Giants exhibition.  

The commission was on display at the gallery until the 20th of May 2018.  The video was done by Mathew Lew and with support from Gerlind Lorch,  Georgia Atienza, Andrea Easey and Sabina Jaskot-Gill. 

 ©National Portrait Gallery

From Tuesday 23rd of January until the end of March, the Photography Archive and Research Centre of the University of the Arts will be displaying the outcome of the commission they awarded me in April 2017. 

This participatory art project is based on a pop-up darkroom and portrait studio to create a series of tintype portraits that are part memorial to, and part celebration of its unique character.

PARC has also published the work in the Field Study journal. Both the exhibition and the publication will be part of the UAL Research  Fortnight 2018.  

From October 2017 until January 2018, I have been running a series of workshops for families, primary and secondary schools and teachers at the Whitechapel Gallery. This is part of a residency scheme with the Schools and Family Programme at the gallery. 

The residency with the Schools Programme involved the installation of a pop up darkroom and a temporary display at the Creative Studio Floor while other gallery floors where also transformed  during the Family Days. 

This month I have been commissioned by The Photographers’ Gallery to set up a pop up CameraScanner studio for the HYPERANALOGUE weekend.  My Temporary Settlement series was on display at the Gallery during the weekend too.

I also have been teaching a Photographic Processes course at the Victoria and Albert Museum and a salt printing course at Photofusion. 

Documentation of the CameraScanner studio by Tim Bowditch. All other images ©Almudena Romero

I am very pleased to share that this is the second year I am invited to run a module for BA Photography students on early processes. This year too the results and the discussion were beyond everyone’s expectations.