Safelight
SAFELIGHT, Emergent Artist-in Residence Open Studios,
The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art
As part of the Emergent Award 2023 and Artist-in Residence at The Baltic, I showed some new works in progress, titled Safelight, in the gallery space on level 1.
Safelight, 2023. ⓒ Emma Bentley Fox
Acetate, photoprint, resin, streamers, spotlights, archive boxes, artist’s photographic archive collection, cotton gloves, lightbox, loupe, slide projector, slides.
Darkrooms have, and often still are, spaces inaccessible to many. Increasingly so with the risings cost of materials, added to the fact that photography can sometimes feel like quite an exclusive community. Darkrooms, might at times feel hostile, unwelcoming, intimidating and potentially unsafe for some. They are however also places of magic. Sites of emergence, of transformation & yearning. In queer nightlife spaces ‘Darkroom’ has been synonymous for a space for anonymous queer sex and intimacy.
Safelight explores the somatic potential of the Darkroom space, as a queer site for healing, reflection, vulnerability and intimacy. The magic of images appearing from nowhere before your eyes, and the faith and risk required of the process. I’m interested in exploring the sensory experiences of physically being in a darkroom too. The tangy chemical hitting the back of your throat, the utter blackness. The feeling your way around a space, the heightening of your other senses. The loudness of small noises and your own heartbeat keeping time. A red light makes a womb of equipment and machinery that gently thrums. The temperature and closeness of the space. Repetitive slow movements, careful, considered & choreographed. All hold great potential for bringing you back into your body and regulating the nervous system. Processing.
What can recovery mean?
What does it mean to feel safe?
What conditions do we need to build intimacy?
How can we take collective responsibility for trauma healing? & what can the impact of that be within social justice/transformation movements?
Emma Bentley Fox talking about her show Confessions of A Party Mom - documenting Queer ecosystems in The North of England.