failures that lead to light

Written By Lisa East
 

Lumen printing is a cameraless process for image-making using silver gelatin photo paper and light. It is a unique process where nuances are revealed in relation to organic matter, heat and moisture interacting with the photo paper. Without a darkroom fix, lumen prints remain ephemeral and will fade over time; with a fix the intense colouration which often occurs is softened and changed. Throughout my studio, I have lumen prints in light-safe bags, shuffled into folders, under stacks of books and in cupboards. Most of these places are not-so-light-safe storage. 

On a new moon quite a few moons ago I made a series of lumen prints with upturned clay vessels that I had built. They cast long shadows across the paper and left ghostly impressions. With the intention of fixing them as they were, I hid them in a file folder underneath a stack of books. When I came back to them months later, scorched edges had revealed themselves on the prints.

 

new moon lumen with scorched edges, unfixed

I was disappointed with my failure of “proper” archival practice and the resulting visibility of my leaky edges. A few weeks later I felt differently. After relinquishing my hope to preserve these prints as I had first made them, I dove into my archive in search of my badly preserved lumens. I noticed impressions left from the stacking of images on top of each other, grid lines I identified as a studio utility cart, and a surprising contact print of my laptop stand. These were physical traces of time spent moving around my studio, containing years of fall-winter-spring-summer light, new moons and full moons, rain and sunshine. Archives are imperfect. We misremember, forget, misplace and find again — intentionally or otherwise. These scorched and layered lumen prints reflected something that felt more accurate to me. Here are a few more bits of process, failure and light:

 
 
 
 
Lisa East