'In a Dark Room' reflects on the state of the Stadnicki Darkroom at Stroud college some two years after John Stadnicki’s passing. Stripped bare and emptied of everything it once held, 'In a Dark Room' offers itself as an unexpected bookend to 'Echoes in Light' - a previous project that documented the darkroom in the immediate aftermath of Stadnicki's death. .
Intended as a visceral, and emotional documentation, 'In a Dark Room' records the loss of a space that was sacred to many creatives over the years. Again photographed using a 35mm camera, the exposed film was processed in a developing solution mixed with rust from the old darkroom sink, along with dust and debris left behind by the demolition. As such, the images are infused with both the physical remnants of the space itself, as well as the existence of all those that produced work there.
As is inherent with photographic darkrooms, this space witnessed years of shortening, stretching, bending, and flattening time. The alchemy of all this meant that, in the end, the span of this room’s existence outside was far outweighed by the life it contained within.
Former presence, undying absence.
