Photo Fringe 2024

ACQUAINTANCE,
Multimedia, 2023.
Supported by a Developing Your Creative Practice Grant, Arts Council England.

Acquaintance explores the creative possibilities of botanical cyanotype toning and sustainable photographic processes. This exploration considers how location-specific sustainable photographic processes can produce bodies of work that are materially connected to the landscape. This project is centred on the Peak District and surrounding areas, close to where I grew up. I was not able to regularly access this landscape as a working class young person living in Manchester. This enquiry allows me to become reacquainted with the landscape, through the lens of photography and through the material engagement with plants identified in the environments I visit.

Dr Melanie King is a working class artist and curator, originally from Manchester, UK. Melanie is now based in Kent, UK. She is co-Director of super/collider, Lumen Studios and founder of the London Alternative Photography Collective. Melanie is Lecturer In Photography at Canterbury Christ Church University. She has recently completed her PhD at the Royal College of Art. She is the Interim Chair of the Royal College of Art, Working Class Collective. She is represented by the Land Art Agency.

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Photo Fringe invited artists to propose a single image to engage audiences and help us imagine a greener, fairer world. Artists were asked to respond to the question “How can photography make a difference to the climate crisis?"

The resulting outdoor exhibition of selected images by nineteen artists can be found on Brighton seafront next to the Upside Down House until 17 November 2024.

See all of the images together here

Created with funding from Arts Council England National Lottery Project Fund and the UK government and Brighton & Hove City Council through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. With print sponsorship from SAS Graphics.

Thanks to our judges Siân Berry, MP and Laura Summerton, Photography Manager, WaterAid.