In/dwelling

Exhibition Details

The series In/dwelling arises from Randall Tosh’s fascination with the strangeness of the natural world. Tosh is drawn to shells as subject matter because of their inherent beauty, which seems, at first glance, to be unconnected with reproduction or any other specific evolutionary purpose. The ephemeral qualities of wet plate photography seem to be well suited to this particular moment, where the natural world is under constant threat of destruction.

Wet plate photography is one of the many alternative processes currently being used by photographers working in the analogue tradition. These processes were rediscovered by photographers over the past three decades, and are prized by those photographers for their beauty and experimental quality. The process of making a wet plate photograph is labor intensive and involves creating, sensitizing, exposing, and developing the plate while the plate is still wet from the sensitizing bath, about 30 minutes per image. The resulting images have a delicate, haunting quality, that evokes the passage of time.

Join Tosh at The Arts Center for a free wet plate demonstration. RSVP for the demo by emailing Jennie Castle at curator@theartscenter.net by June 12, 2023.