A Sensory Process
Our process has developed through years of research and experimentation. It combines analogue and digital photography with jewellery making to give tangible meaning to people's virtual networks.
In the workshops, people map the ways in which the images they hold and exchange on their phones connect them to family, friends, places, and memories. They then select one image.
‘People migrate from one place to another, and as they move, their bonds of love with the place they come from continue like spider webs.’
Mahide, Turkish Poet, Bristol 2023
The SIMCAM
Our custom-built camera with handmade bellows rewinds the history of photography. People optically transfer their digital images to SIM-scale plates, made of the same 0.7 mm glass as smartphone screens, using nineteenth-century photographic methods.
The SIMPOD
The 3D-printed mobile darkroom, equipped with a red light and a window, allows people to watch their images appear in miniature tanks. The chemical process renders each piece unique.
Networked jewellery
The final step is to hand-stamp a personally meaningful number onto our registered metal frame, echoing the SIM’s International Identification Number.
Everyone makes one pendant to add to the touring collection and another to keep and carry. In this way the project becomes a living, moving exhibition.
‘I keep my SIM card in my wallet as a reminder of a place and a past life that I am not able to reach’
School bus driver, Sudan and Greece, 2022
