The Sustainable Darkroom Futures Residency is a hybrid online programme culminating in an in-person exhibition and symposium in partnership with the Northern Centre of Photography and the Photography Research Group: Bridging Photographies, Cultures, Communities at the University of Sunderland. The Sustainable Darkroom are supported by Arts Council England, using public funding from the National Lottery, and The Grocers’ Charity. Through this open call, SD are seeking five individuals to propose research and development projects for innovative, sustainable systems in photography. They encourage applicants to think beyond the established norms in this sector, and to envision radical, unorthodox, even outlandish ideas that look at the bigger picture of photographic systems. This includes not only the material, but the philosophical, the political, legal, structural and beyond.

Research topics may include (but not limited to): darkrooms, commercial photo labs, galleries, universities, waste systems, legal/political frameworks, architecture, civil engineering, AI, digital and analogue technology production.

You don’t have to create a functioning version of your proposal by the end of the residency – although it is encouraged. Prototypes, blueprints, test images, written papers, and more will suffice – SD prioritise imagination and creativity in submissions, allowing for the speculative and conceptual to thrive.

To find out more please go to the direct link.