Auto-Portrait Photowall - Obscura Collective x Blackburn Museum Residency
The Auto-Portrait Photowall
The Auto-Portrait Photo wall was commissioned in June 2024 by Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery as a resident project to celebrate their 150th Anniversary.
The project was created collaboratively, inviting visitors to sit in front of our old large format plate camera and create their own self-portrait, turning the modern day 'selfie' on its head by slowing down the process and introducing historical techniques.
Our aim was to challenge the power dynamic created in photography between the photographer and their 'subject'. By presenting participants with a shutter release cable with which to activate the camera, it allows the sitter to become both the photographer and the photographed, returning to them the authorship over exactly which moment is captured.
These images were shot onto photographic paper, which was then developed on location in a pop-up darkroom, producing a one-of-a-kind negative print, adding to a growing exhibition of work.
These negative 'selfies' are hard to make out at first. By scanning a QR code, participants are able to use their phone screens to invert the print, revealing a black and white positive image. In this way viewers of the exhibition are encouraged to slow down and engage with the work.
The project remains in residence in the Hart Gallery until May 2025 and the exhibition will continue to be added to with a number of public sessions.
