Unfixing the Archive – From Negative to Print

A shoebox full of prints, a tin of slides, a strip of negatives in a glassine envelope. Analogue images have a peculiar quality: they don’t simply disappear; they lie in wait. They wait.

In the workshop ‘Unfixing the archive – From negative to print’, we bring this material to light. Negatives, slides and family photos brought along become the basis for your own prints. We enlarge, expose and develop, actively intervening in the image in the process. For enlargement involves more than mere reproduction: cropping and exposure time are decisions that alter the image. A moment too long in the developer, a shift in the paper under the enlarger, an object directly on the surface – the image opens itself up to interventions, to overpainting, to new meanings.

The archive material you bring serves as a starting point, not as a template. Objects can become photograms, prints fragments of a collage. What was once captured is re-examined.

The workshop is aimed at anyone who owns their own analogue images – whether taken by themselves or inherited – and wishes to rediscover or reimagine them using the tools of the darkroom. No prior knowledge is required. Participants must be aged 18 or over.

To take part, please bring: your own negatives (black and white, developed), slides or analogue images from your family archive.