It’s process time! Hand developing the super 8mm film that has come back from the families for my @aceagrams funded project ‘ARTICLE 16’. I’m going to go through the steps of hand developing Super 8mm film in more depth, in case anyone is interested, but here’s a wee overview. Blindfold practicing loading my LOMO 8mm film developing tank! When I was a clapper loader (person who puts film in the big movie cameras and says scene 1, take 1, *snap*!) on film sets my boss use to send me to @procamtake2 warehouse to practice loading all the cameras that we might use and I would wear my shirt up over my eyes (to my boss’s dismay) to stop sneaking a peek when the mechanism got complicated as I had to be able to do it in complete darkness so as not to expose the film. For my 8mm process I had my lil make shift ‘darkroom’ (didn’t need to be dark as film was tucked up safely in the LOMO tank, which I loaded in the toilet with the lights off lol) @aspacearts Arch 04 by my studio @archesstudiossouthampton. Warmed up my chemicals in a water bath with a monitor heater. Mixed the E6 chemicals (as I chose to shoot colour reversal film) and worked out my timings and made sure I had them all plastered right in my view so not to miss a timing! The film is very sensitive to temperature and timings. And my nose is sensitive to the chemicals! I then used a laundry rack to dry the film, put it on a spool which was a nightmare! And it worked!! I couldn’t believe it! First time developing with these chemicals, and worked first time. It was slightly disconcerting as the image comes out as the film drys, so I left my studio thinking it hadn’t worked, and came back to find a lovely tonal image had come out, of Dad of participating family Benn Benjamin @iamnowbenn and his wee toddler Silver. Can’t wait for ARTICLE 16 to open soon!

It’s Fred (@iffbiro & @fredashleighthornton)
My friend Genie has started calling me ‘Nanafred’. Mainly because I like knitting, birds and napping. We were talking about whether we wanted to have children one day and as someone with a butt tonne of younger siblings I feel I have spent enough time looking after kids, but I do still think kids are great. She then said I could be ‘Nanafred’ to her kids when she has them. Which works out great for me because we can bake and do crafts and stuff, but then I can give the kids back at the end of the day. I have known that I didn’t want kids since I was 13, but also have been kind of conflicted about it because I love kids and want a family. I found out a few years ago that I may not be able to ever conceive children of my own which made me confront those feelings again. I was already pretty resolved that if I were to have kids, I would adopt but learning about my biology forced me to think about what I actually wanted in a family. And being ‘Nanafred’ is exactly it. Kids are great but bloody exhausting; I have things I want to pass on to children and teach them but also, I like having my own space. After reading ‘Pleasure Activism by @adriennemareebrown I was also introduced to families that operate outside of the cis/het norm and are full of love and support for each other and made me realise that I can have that for myself too. It takes more than two parents to raise a child and I am more than happy to be ‘Nanafred’ to my friend’s kids.
ARTICLE 16 is a new video art piece by Asten Holmes-Elliott exhibiting @johnhansardgallery, @aspacearts The Alfred Arcade, and The Spark Building @solentuniversity, until 19th June.