This exhibition presents the outcome of the 2022 PhotoAccess Dark Matter Residents, David Lindesay, Melanie Cobham and Tessa Ivison. The PhotoAccess Dark Matter residency provides a supported opportunity for artists to produce new photo-media work that incorporates darkroom-based or other alternative photographic processes.

Centering on a series of small objects created through printing bitmap images onto metal plates, Lindesay’s work interrogates traditions of representing the male body, possibilities for a queer gaze and the contemporary disruption of experiences of touch, vulnerability and connection.

Cobham searches for abstract ways to understand borders, language and identity, charting the territories (internal and external) that define belonging. Originally from Uruguay, the artist explores the intersection of darkroom photography and etching, treating these corrosive processes as a metaphor for the abrasive and damaging effects of bureaucratic structures on migrants.

Using a handmade, analogue, multiple-pinhole camera, Ivison sets out to respond to Cubist art historical traditions. Contesting digital media algorithms that often show us the world from a single narrow viewpoint, based on an individual’s perspective, the artist seeks to portray the many simultaneous facets of reality.