Haptic Foto Summer 2021

Haptic Foto is a dynamic pilot project aimed at exploring and reinvigorating the idea of the ‘haptic’ (touch) in photography through an analogue darkroom programme. A cultural response to the pandemic impacts on the tactile experience, Haptic Foto is equally a critical reflection on art/work and labour through the artist’s studio as a place of production, research and connectedness.

The work of setting up a darkroom and the alchemical processes of a working, ‘wet’ photographic space where negative print film is developed and positive images are hand-printed using light, chemicals and finally washed in water, are resonant with the labour of making, cleaning, touching.

The Haptic Foto photographic darkroom will be established by artist Mhairi Sutherland as part of the Clarendon Street Studios, Derry/Londonderry for a limited time during Summer 2021. The processes and explorations will be shared online and through social media whilst the experimental artworks will be presented in a public pop-up exhibition and associated events in Wild Tulips Gallery. Beginning in June through to August the work of establishing and working in the pilot B&W darkroom will be underway, from setting up the darkroom equipment and processes to creating images through cameraless processes, developing films and printing a series of analogue images. In Autumn 2021, the exhibition will open with associated events and activities ‐ darkroom view, artist + partners talk, exhibition tour, open to public, free and accessible in the Wild Tulips Gallery.

Supported by Derry City and Strabane District Council Arts and Cultural Practitioner Award

NEWS

Clarendon Street Studios

Poster - Clarendon Street Studios and Wild Tulips Gallery opened on Wednesday 18 September 2019, with an exhibition by studio artists Mhairi Sutherland, Damien Duffy, Aimee Melaugh, John Robinson, Anne-Marie McKee and Paola Bernadelli. Exhibition continues until 19 October 2019.

Dome, analogue print (2018) copyright Mhairi Sutherland

artlink 2019

Genesis Lost solo exhibition 26 October – 16 November 2019 at Artlink, Inishowen, Co Donegal, Ireland. Genesis Lost reflects the research period of 2017/18 resulting in a video and unique artists’ book, a new direction that continues to develop the interests and concerns with the intersection of photographic processes and militarism. Research on The Dome (project working title) was supported by an Individual Artists’ Award 2017-18 from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

NiMAC 2020

An invitation to undertake an artists’ residency at NiMAC, Nicosia, Cyprus is based on my proposal to critically explore an imperial album of the island, created by the Victorian photographer John Thompson. Through Cyprus with the Camera, In the Autumn of 1878 is composed of thematic photographs of the new British colony, made by Thompson shortly after the signing of the Protectorate of Cyprus, a transfer of control from the Ottoman Empire.

John Thompson, Famagusta ruins, 1878 Image Wellcome Trust — John Thompson, *Famagusta ruins,* 1878 Image Wellcome Trust

gemini 2020

A new video commission for the Walking the Walls series of exhibitions, curated by Gregory McCartney, which presents ‘alternative approaches and explorations of the Derry Walls’. Gemini will explore the unique twinning of the City of Derry/Londonderry with the City of London. Supported by the Derry City and Strabane District Council’s Walled City – 400 Years Event Funding.

Image Creative Commons: Michelet B-Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1061272.