The first darkroom exhibition opened on December 5th at The Grafton on Prince of Wales Road, with work by 27 photographers showing over 60 pieces of work
The new pub management are very keen to foster local community links, which chimes with darkroom’s mission to build a strong communal base for film-based photographers and practitioners of alternative photographic processes. So we jumped at the opportunity when they offered us their beautiful upstairs function rooms to hold our first group show.
Almost half our current membership responded to the call for work. Setting ourselves a two-month turnaround from the initial call for work to the hanging date, it was bound to be frenzied time for both the organisers and exhibitors to get everything ready in time. With welcome help from some of our members and most of the darkroom team, the hanging was accomplished pretty smoothly for a first time. There was palpable excitement as the frames were unwrapped and laid out, and the quality of work became apparent. With two very different exhibiting spaces and a diverse range of imagery, sequencing the hang was quite a challenge and it took the whole morning before everyone was happy.
The afternoon was taken up with positioning the temporary hangers and getting all the frames and labels up on the walls. Thankfully, there were plenty of helping hands and the job was accomplished just in time for the pub to start their own preparation for a private hire in the evening.
A couple of days later, our private view, attended by over 100 people, was a resounding success. For many of those exhibiting, this was their first time showing in public, so the audience’s vocal praise was particularly rewarding. At the time of writing, the exhibition has been up for almost three weeks and the feedback continues to be astounding and a number of pieces have already sold!
If you are in the neighbourhood over the next couple of weeks please drop in see it for yourself.
The Grafton, 20 Prince of Wales Road, London NW5 3LG
There will be Finissage on January 9th (6.00 - 9.00pm), during which we will be holding an auction where you will be able to bid for any unsold work. Come along, it should be fun and who knows you might pick up a bargain by one of the photographic stars of the future!
The exhibitors are:
Charles Cave, Colin Mace, Lattina Da'Costa, Stefanie Hatt, Luke Blackall, Elisabeth Scheder-Bieschin, Luke Hayes, Andy Chung, Auguste Juozapavičiūtė, Mary Ngwu, Jeff Wilder, Nadège Mériau, Rob Partington, Jesse Leary, Milena Michalski, Jimmi Wing Ka Ho, Sam Tarpey, Spike Blake, Bethany Hardy, Jamie Stevens-Brown, Catriona Gray, Yassi Djazaeri, Dennis Yandoli, Xinyue Tao, Jamie Sandall, Philip Grey, Philippe Reyniers, Giacomo Mantovani.