Hoda Afshar_The Fold @NGV

 For the past 6 months or so, I have had the privilege of working with Hoda Afshar, helping with the production of her exhibition at the NGV (as part of the Triennial) called 'The Fold' ...

It is an immensely complex project that involved Hoda accessing online images from the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris, made by a French psychiatrist in Morocco from 1918 to 1919, who became obsessed with the clothing and covering of Islamic women. Please read the essay by Katherina Prugger.

My component in the project was the production of 900 digital negatives for eventual darkroom printing on silver gelatine paper. It has been a very serendipitous project as it brought me back into deeper contact with a remarkable student, Renato Colangelo, whom I taught in a photo media visual arts course in my days as a TAFE teacher.

The technical complexities involved in matching the output densities on transparent material to that required to make a darkroom print were quite significant and time consuming, as was the time involved in printing such a large number of images... a labour of love really.

Renato first approached me to see if I would be willing to take part in this very ambitious project, where I would make the digital negatives using my Epson P906 printer and Renato would undertake the laborious darkroom printing. There are very few production darkrooms left, particularly ones printing on such time intensive, traditional silver gelatine paper.