Exhibitions

Shifting Horizons @ Digital Window Gallery

27 March - 31 March 2024

PLATFORM: ISSUE 6

26 March 2024

Events

Saturday Town: Launch Event

10 April 2024

Exhibitions

Coming Soon: Saturday Town

11 April - 18 May 2024

Past Events

PLATFORM: ZINE LAUNCH EVENT

21 March 2024

Home. Ukrainian Photography, UK Words: Tour

4 March - 28 February 2025

Exhibitions

Home: Ukrainian Photography, UK Words @ New Adelphi

4 March - 8 March 2024

Past Events

CREATIVE SOCIAL: IN THE ABSENCE OF FORMAL GROUND

2 March 2024

Exhibitions

We Feed The UK @ Exterior Walls

8 February - 31 March 2024

Past Events

Contrail Cirrus: the impact of aviation on climate change

7 March 2024

Exhibitions

Tree Story @ Liverpool ONE

16 February - 1 May 2024

Open Source #27: Saffron Lily – In The Absence of Formal Ground @ Digital Window Gallery

6 February - 31 March 2024

Past Events

Contemporary Photography from Ukraine: Symposium @University of Salford

4 March - 5 March 2024

Past Events

Is Anybody Listening? Symposium: Commissioning and Collecting Socially Engaged Photography

29 February 2024

Past Events

Different approaches: Artists working with scientists

15 February 2024

Events

LOOK Climate Lab 2024: All Events

18 January 2024

Exhibitions

Diesel & Dust @ Digital Window Gallery

18 January - 31 March 2024

Events

Tree Walks Of Sefton Park with Andrea Ku

21 January 2024

Past Events

Artists Remake the World by Vid Simoniti: Book Launch

31 January 2024

Past Events

Shift Liverpool Open Meeting

6 February 2024

Past Events

We Feed The UK Launch and LOOK Climate Lab 2024 Celebration

8 February 2024

Past Events

Cyanotype workshop with Melanie King

17 February 2024

Past Events

End of Empire: artist talk and discussion

22 February 2024

Past Events

Book Launch: What The Mine Gives, The Mine Takes

24 February 2024

Past Events

Local ecology in the post-industrial era: open discussion

14 March 2024

Past Events

Waterlands: creative writing workshop

23 March 2024

Past Events

Plant a seed. Seed sow and in conversation with Plot2Plate

16 March 2024

Past Events

Erosion: panel discussion

9 March 2024

Past Events

Waterlands: an evening of poetry and photographs

23 March 2024

Events

Force For Nature Exhibition

27 March - 28 March 2024

Voices of Nature: Interactive Performances

28 March 2024

Past Events

Sum of All Parts: Symposium

27 February 2024

Exhibitions Main Exhibition

LOOK Climate Lab 2024

18 January - 31 March 2024

Past Events

MA Socially engaged photography Open Day event

1 February 2023

Past Events

Tish: Special screening and Q&A

13 December 2023

Past Events

Book Launch: A Look At A New Perspective

23 November 2023

Events

Community workshops @ Ellesmere Port Library

6 November - 5 February 2024

Past Events

Book Launch: ‘544m’ By Kevin Crooks

30 November 2023

Past Exhibitions

Bernice Mulenga @ Open Eye Gallery Atrium Space

17 November - 17 December 2023

Past Events

Bernice Mulenga: Artist Talk

18 November 2023

Past Exhibitions

Local Roots @ The Atkinson

14 October 2023

Exhibitions

Community @ Ellesmere Port Library

26 October - 11 April 2024

Past Events

Critique Surgery for Socially Engaged Photographers

6 November 2023

Past Events

Deeds Not Words: panel discussion

12 October 2023

Past Exhibitions

Deeds Not Words @ Atrium Space

3 October - 22 October 2023

Ode To Our Space @ Digital Window Gallery

29 September - 23 December 2023

A Look At A New Perspective @ Digital Window Gallery

29 September - 23 December 2023

Past Events

Book Launch: Crow Dark Dawn

19 October 2023

Past Events

Exhibition Launch: A Place of Our Own

28 September 2023

Reflections

12 September - 22 December 2023

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Sale: Expired Impossible film

The Open Eye Gallery shop is currently having a 10% discount sale on expired ‘Impossible’ Polaroid film, and as far as expired produce goes, this is an excellent deal.

For many, the act of instant photography has become one of tactility, the framed memory. The quality of the image has become a huge part of instant photography; even having a digital filter on phones replicating it’s faded and aged appearance. When film expires, or simply ages, it becomes less predictable and more prone to over exposure, distortions in the image, and other incredible effects that would be difficult to achieve otherwise. So instead of throwing out expired stock, we feel the opportunity for creative expression and experimentation should be wildly promoted.

The unpredictable and inconsistent nature of film can often deliver a wide variation of satisfying visual results. Quite often, photographers and artists alike are open to experimenting and testing the limitations of the medium, striving more and more to deliver imagery expressing the films fullest potential. People are known to rip, bleach, dissect, burn, drown, and irradiate their Polaroids (and more so) to varying levels of expertise and success.

A brief history of Polaroid photography: in 1947 Edwin Land, founder of Polaroid, demonstrated to the public for the first time something that revolutionized photography and would later define a generation within its now iconic white borders. Now a household name and an instantly recognizable brand to photographers and non-photographers alike, Polaroid is arguably, aside from digital, the most accessible form of photography.

In 2008, however, Polaroid stopped producing instant film, much to the horror of their devout, if not somewhat niche fan base, as their cameras and photographic process would suddenly have a very limited lifespan. The factories producing the film stocks shut down one by one- the machines were dismantled and a truly iconic format was to be left in ruin. In the very last days of the very last factory a group of people called ‘Impossible Project’ stepped in and bought the factory in its entirety to then set about re-creating instant film from scratch.

Impossible is now the only company in the world that produces film for Polaroid cameras and realizes Polaroid’s philosophy of experimentation and play. Working with this approach, expired film can often be inspired, allowing for effects even more distorted, abstracted, over exposed, and so on. The fact that film has passed it’s sell by date, does not mean it will not work, but instead suggests that the temperamental nature of the film maybe exacerbated somewhat by the length of time since the chemicals had been mixed, the film had been produced; all of these factors that will contribute to the final resulting image.

Currently, the Open Eye shop stocks five different types of Impossible film in both colour and monochrome, including the classic white frame packs and the rarer black frame editions. Alongside these are fun ‘Skins Edition’ packs, which include varying designs around the borders of the image surface. All of our Impossible film is specifically intended for use with Polaroid’s most popular cameras: the Polaroid SX-70 and Polaroid 600. Expired instant film is unpredictable, allowing artists and photographers, and absolutely anybody else to express their creativity with just a single click (and however else you can alter your polaroid).

Impossible Project is releasing a brand new camera in May, this year. Link below.

https://uk.impossible-project.com/pages/impossible-i-1-analog-instant-camera

 

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