Chemigram Workshop with Negative Thinking

Negative Thinking are running a chemigram workshop at Arnolfini on Wednesday 18 November, from 2pm to 4pm. It's an introduction to chemigrams — expressive photo-chemical drawings made by sketching your surroundings with a specialist photographic technique and experimenting with mark-making and chemical reactions. The session responds to Joy Gregory's exhibition Catching Flies with Honey, which is currently showing at the gallery.

Negative Thinking is a community darkroom and photographic studio based in Bedminster, specialising in traditional and alternative darkroom processes and built on openness and the sharing of skills. The workshop is led by them, so it's a good place to get a handle on a process that doesn't usually get much airtime outside of a darkroom. You'll be working with chemicals rather than a camera, sketching the space around you and seeing how different marks and reactions play out on the paper.

The exhibition it's tied to is by Joy Gregory, a UK artist born in 1959 and a graduate of Manchester Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art, whose practice focuses on social and political issues. Arnolfini itself is Bristol's International Centre for Contemporary Arts, founded in 1961 by Jeremy and Annabel Rees, and has since shown the work of tens of thousands of artists to tens of millions of people.

The workshop runs from 14:00 to 16:00 in the Light Studio on Level 2 of Arnolfini, and it's a pay-what-you-can session, so you can contribute what you're able to.