- Location North West, Salford
- Artform combined arts, film, interdisciplinary arts, photography, visual arts
- Contact Helen McGhie nightlight.darkroom@gmail.com
Nightlight Darkroom is seeking creative submissions from artists based in the North or South of England engaged with a lens based practice to participate inHard Focus, an exhibition examining the role of contemporary photography in the ‘expanded field’. The show will provide a new opportunity for artists engaged with photography to participate in a cross-country network of exchange investigating the image.
In the context of contemporary art, photography is no longer an independent medium, but something entwined and closely connected to other art forms and systems of communication including sculpture, video, computer graphics and virtual space.
“Everywhere one looks today in the world of contemporary art, the photographic object seems to be an object in crisis, or at least in severe transformation.” – George Baker, ‘Photography’s Expanded Field’ in October 114, p. 121, 2005
Physical space is a valuable commodity; over-subscribed cities force us to compress and minimalize our lives into the smallest places possible, de-cluttering ‘unnecessary’ possessions/paperwork/products. This crush on the physical can be articulated through photography, consider how digital technology has led to the dense family album being abandoned in favour of online social media (where images are uploaded, but compressed ‘to fit’), or the endless barrage of images deconstructing themselves.
Hard Focus will investigate photography in ‘excess’; submissions with an interdisciplinary focus, work already produced or constructed in response to the space are welcome. To submit, please send a PDF (no larger than 8 MB) containing a maximum of 10 images, CV and statement to Helen at nightlight.darkroom@gmail.com by midnight, 12th September 2016
The exhibition will take place in November, and will be accompanied by events including a symposium and ‘official opening’ of Nightlight Darkroom, a new space for analogue photography on the edge of Manchester. www.nightlightdarkroom.wordpress.com