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I applied for an a-n New Collaborations Bursary to support a period of practice-based research between the photographer and photographic printer Edward Otchere and myself. My practice predominantly exists within the field of drawing, often starting with rudimentary media such as paper and graphite. In my most recent work, drawings have been developed into densely worked reflective surfaces and manipulated through interventions in the paper plane, engaging with light, space and materiality. Otchere and I have previously collaborated on the photographic documentation of folded, graphite covered paper forms. Up to this point our initial explorations have used a digital camera and natural light to produce a small series of pigment prints. The a-n New Collaborations Bursary will allow me to collaborate with Otchere, a practitioner who has extensive experience of photography, studio lighting and printing to develop these initial photographs further. Otchere has a commitment to analogue production, shooting on film and printing on alternative paper stocks in a darkroom. His work is actively engaged with the chemical and paper-based materiality of photographic printing – often using obsolete chemicals and – as mine relates to the materiality of drawing on paper.
Through the collaboration we hope to produce a series of exploratory photographic prints. By working with Otchere, I also aim to develop my understanding and knowledge of analogue photographic processes and have an opportunity to explore the relationship between the material aspects of photography and similar concerns within my existing work, thereby facilitating a progression of the conceptual surrounds of my practice in addition to producing a new, exploratory collaborative body of work on paper. We will be using the studio and darkroom facilities at Photofusion, London (http://www.photofusion.org) during our collaboration.
