A Sensory Process
Our process has developed through years of collaborative research and experimentation. It combines analogue and digital photography with jewellery making to give tangible meaning to people's virtual networks.
Through a series of activities, participants map the ways that SIM cards and the images they hold and exchange on their phones connect them to family, friends, places and memories. They select a ‘screenshot with a story’.
‘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 bespoke camera with handmade bellows rewinds the history of photography. Digital images are transferred to SIM-scale models, made of the same 0.7 mm glass as smartphone screens, using nineteenth-century photographic methods.
The SIMPOD
This 3D-printed mobile darkroom with a mini red light enables participants to watch their images develop through a viewfinder. The sensory chemical process renders each artwork unique.
Networked jewellery
The final step is to complete and polish a custom-designed metal frame etched with the project’s QR code. Each frame is then hand-stamped with a personally meaningful number, making every piece unique.
Every participant makes one to add to the collection and another to keep and wear. 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
