Wendy Hardie. Hardie’s expanded photography explores environmental and political fragility through specific woodland, rocky coastal sites in East Scotland connecting Scotsmen John Muir, father of USA’s National Parks and environmental conservation, and James Hutton, father of modern geology, who overturned by millennia earth’s understood age, therefore humanity’s significance. Both explored these terrains intimately. Embedded in them are WW2 anti-tank concrete block series, homebuilt, frontline defences against Nazi invasion, massive chains created from humble corrugated formwork. Haunting, deeply moving legacies of united stands against fascism’s horrors, they are shockingly relevant again now, metaphors for chains of resistance against environmental and human degradation.

Riya Panwar, Still Life. "Still Life" is a visual ode to life's impermanence, exploring how inanimate objects convey deeper truths. This artwork captures the traditional essence of still life, used by artists to examine colour, texture, and compositional harmony. Riya focuses on a fruit layered with polaroid emulsion, symbolizing the life cycle as it decays. Throughout the exhibition, the canvas decays, visually representing existence's transient nature, growth, and beauty. This piece continues the narrative of "A Pearl," showcased in Symbiosis II, further emphasizing the delicate balance between life and decay within a still life composition.

Milena Michalski. 'Marking Time' is part of the ongoing phytogram series 'Taking Time', created from plants found in places meaningful to the artist, which subtly record time and trace through the symbiosis of plant and paper. Phytography is the interaction of plant chemistry and photo-sensitive surface, facilitated by the artist, activated by plant agency. Michalski treats the process as a meditation on duration and transience, on the visible and invisible. The work is a physical encapsulation of the time taken to select the plant, to make the homemade plant developer and of the duration of direct contact between plant and paper.

Ky Lewis, Breathe. Sustainability and environmentalism is important to Ky, she reuses and recycles as part of her practice. Started during covid, her works respond to the ‘urban forest’ within South London, looking at the value of the green canopy, recording dramatically pollarded street trees as a counterpoint to local specimen trees in parks. Fallen Quercus 131 is in direct response to the felling of 131 Oak trees in a local park, the unsanctioned destruction decimating a generation of Oaks. She collected oak gall, bark and leaves from the fallen trees and created large format pinholes documenting the devastation. Negatives were then used today to create a repeat image each memorialising the 131 and toned with Oak Galls from the tree in the image, mounted on a veneer of aged wood.

Megan Ringrose, After Fox Talbot. ‘After Fox Talbot’ is a conceptual photographic work that references Talbot’s personal notebooks prior to his ground-breaking paper-based salt print in 1839. Talbot possessed a colossal botanic knowledge which, I think, fed his photographic experimentation.

Esme Papa, Soaking in Seaweed: First swim of Autumn This piece of work is part of a larger project that has been running alongside many of Esme Papa’s other works. Soaking in Seaweed is an exploration into her long standing fascination with seaweed, its slimy textures and irregular shapes. As an avid sea swimmer she is always pleasantly greeted by many different varieties on her journey through the sea. Through the use of cyanotypes she can study and record these unique shapes and textures. Ultimately creating an abstract depiction of her swims.

Ed Sykes, Rock. From the series Rock photographed on the eroded Norfolk coast. One of over 100 prints processed using seaweed and a variety of darkroom techniques to produce unique artworks

Sophie Sherwood, Past Me. Sherwood explores the idea of the past self by returning to unfinished work made pre pandemic. Opening the box is to change the work, as the paper reacts with light. Participants are encouraged to open the box and look at the piece for as long as they wish, dwelling on the past and watching the subtle changes. Made in 2019 during a residency with Fish Factory Arts, foraged plant matter was collected and pressed between two pieces of photographic paper. The plants released their juices into the surface of the silver gelatine paper and interact with the chemicals present.

Soham Joshi, Blotched Edifice. "Blotched Edifice" explores the impact of rapid urbanization on landscapes and communities. Influenced by the principles of the New Topographics, the work highlights how formerly serene environments are transformed by industrialization. Through haptic photoprints, the series conveys the lived experiences of workers and residents affected by construction. The artist captures images of building sites and prints them on cartridge paper, which is then stained with materials such as concrete, dust, and corrosion residues gathered from these locations. This tactile approach emphasizes the physical and environmental toll of urban expansion, bringing attention to labor issues and health concerns.

Anna Kroeger, Moorhen. ‘Moorhen’ is an image from Anna’s series ‘The Land Between the Water’. The photos were captured on film during slow wanders around an approximately 300x30 metre stretch of land between the River Lea and Tumbling Bay Lake in Hertfordshire. Developed with locally gathered plants instead of regular chemical developer, the project explores finding connection with place and the self through observing the cycles of nature. ‘The Land Between the Water’ was conceived as an immersive activity for the artist’s own wellbeing, where walking, observing, foraging and making are equally important as the final print.

Hayley Harrison, Forsythia. These cyanotypes, are made on floral wallpaper backs, toned with barley grass, and mounted on discarded wood. 'they concreted over the garden and the cats ran away' series includes sections of Hayley’s Nan’s garden - photographed in the 80’s and 90’s by people now passed. Living with their Nan during childhood - from earliest memories, this garden was a refuge, abundant with interdependent life. Eventually this house was sold, and the garden concreted over. These abstract corners could be any garden or green space. They hang as signposts or as memorials. In a time of human-made global horror, destruction of home is an everyday occurrence.

Sayako Sugawara, Rain Cyanotype . This series developed during the dry summer of ‘22. Parks turned yellow and ponds shrank to the size of puddles. At the first hint of rain I put cyanotype paper out of my window to try to capture the first welcome drops. As the weather changed I would leave paper out overnight to discover cyanotype landscapes created by the rain in the morning. These cyanotypes have changed colour since the initial exposure and will continue to change as time goes by.

Anna Lukala, Unfolding Variations Part V. Anna Lukala's artwork is an exploration of encounters and observations within the landscapes she inhabits, reflecting on the relationship between her photographic images and their materiality. Through her sustainable working practice, Lukala forages for mushrooms, which she then utilises to create handmade paper. By embracing the unexpected and the unrepeatable, she reveals the inherent unpredictability of her chosen materials. The paper itself almost takes on a life of its own, resisting conventional rules and serving as a reminder of its organic origins. Lukala's work encapsulates a delicate balance between fragility and resilience, offering a glimpse into the precarious interconnectedness of the natural world.

Laura Hindmarsh, Pocket Light. Miniature pinholes captured on the artist's walk to work along the seafront between St Leonards and Hastings. Using a film canister and direct positive paper Hindmarsh leaves home each morning with a camera her my pocket to capture a few seconds of light which she later develops in the darkroom using a variety of plant-based developers made from plants she collects along the way, including seaweed, brambles and fleabane.

Zara Carpenter. ‘Relics of Healing’ is one chapter from an ongoing series visualising the invisible: childhood trauma and how it manifests itself as pain within the body. Zara uses different experimental techniques to break down the surface of self-portraits targeting parts of her body and mind causing distress. This seemingly violent act is a part of letting go: a cathartic release. Later she buries the artworks in safe places like her garden to be transformed by nature, the tins rust, the prints bleached by the sun and rain or eaten by night creatures.