Time+Space

Process Reversal Fundraising Campaign
2017-2020

Objectives

During its first fundraising cycle, Process Reversal (PR) aims to develop the resources needed to achieve four major goals. These objectives are integral to PR’s mission to preserve, promote and harness the expressive potential of photochemical image making.

Education –

Process Reversal’s education initiatives have two major tracks:

1. Photochemical Image-Making – Process Reversal is committed to facilitating and demystifying technical processes of these practices. This is and will continue to be achieved primarily through extensive workshop programming.In concert with these workshop sessions, PR develops innovative new tools designed for small-scale production. These devices are used in workshop environments to advance a new technological paradigm in image making that is well suited to this post-industrial age.These activities serve a primary aim of our mission: to promote the continued use of photochemical processes by filmmakers, artists, hobbyists, and the public at large by providing the training, the exposure, and the opportunity required.
2. Media Literacy – In an increasingly image-driven era, Process Reversal is committed to promoting media literacy in all age groups. To be literate is to be able to read and write, so it follows that media literacy includes the ability to make as well as to interpret. Photochemical processes are the antecedents to contemporary image making, and to be exposed to these techniques is also to better understand other technologies, including digital tools. Rather than offer image making experiences that are defined by the content needs of media industries, Process Reversal provides a critical and historical context that fosters agency and understanding across the entire gamut of image making. To this end, PR seeks to launch a K-adult outreach program dedicated to filling the photochemical media literacy gap.

Exhibition –

PR seeks to facilitate and to organize the exhibition of works that include photochemical process. This works in tandem with our educational efforts, while also providing accommodation for artists who work with these processes but find limited capacity to show their work. These exhibitions enhance the richness and depth of the arts programming in the communities that they serve, introducing spectators to the works of regional, national, and international artists and makers that they might otherwise be unable to experience.

Empowerment –

In order to promote the use of photochemical image making techniques and processes, Process Reversal seeks not only to develop capabilities, but also to provide the technical facilities needed to produce this kind of work to the local community as well as visiting artists and practitioners.

Accessibility is of primary concern for a medium that has, until recently, been driven primarily by an industrial model. As these industry labs and facilities close, new artist-run initiatives are taking their place. PR seeks to expand and further develop its capacity to offer these opportunities to the region, while also serving as a destination for the extensive network of national and international artists and practitioners who run similar projects elsewhere.

Engagement –

Engagement is both the predicate and the result of the above goals and objectives. PR is committed to expanding and strengthening its capacity to engage with the community, both in terms of Colorado’s Front Range and the photochemical arts community at large.

While programming to date has been vast and far ranging, we are acutely aware of the potential that a deeper connection with a local community can bring. By developing our connections and resources in the Denver area, PR can more effectively serve the Front Range while maintaining and increasing programming throughout the world.

For PR, engagement also means that we enter into the global film labs network as equal, contributing members. To this end, PR seeks to develop its capacity to offer photochemical services, visiting artist programs and residencies, and unique technical resources. Through these activities, the local community will also benefit by making the region a destination for film and photographic arts.

What We Need

Time – Reliability as an organization on an annual basis

No organization is free from the bonds and limitations of an operating budget. Up to this point, PR has only been able to piecemeal our operating budget through individual events, such as traveling workshops and screenings. This has been enough to fund our organizational objectives on a temporary, day to day basis, but it has made our activities relatively inconsistent.

Through this fundraiser, we are seeking to change our relationship with money by changing our relationship with time, thinking beyond the daily and focusing on the annual. We are seeking to create a regular operating budget that will allow our organization to become a consistent and reliable source on a yearly basis for education, exhibition, regional engagement, and community empowerment.

Space –A local, publicly accessible, multi-use work space of our own.

Since our inception, PR has only been able to achieve our objectives through the temporary use of lab spaces owned by other organizations, mostly out-of-state and abroad. Through access to these borrowed spaces we have managed to establish a presence internationally, but surprisingly we have found ourselves struggling to establish this same presence at the local level. This is why we are shifting our focus towards our local community right here on the Front Range of Colorado where PR was founded and where the majority of our members call home.

In order to achieve our objectives locally, it is imperative that we establish a physical work space within the Denver Metro area that we can call our own.  This space will need to have the capability to be multi-use and multidimensional, accommodating our ever growing needs.

We are fundraising to acquire a work space that will be a permanent residence for our organization, housing all the necessary materials and equipment to implement our goals. Media education, public exhibition, creative empowerment, and community engagement is only made possible through consistent accessibility to the proper resources. PR has already acquired much of the equipment, materials, and resources necessary, but we have not been able to acquire a space to utilize them. A fully operational work space will solve these problems, allowing PR to become a contributing member of the international lab community and empower the Front Range region to become a destination spot for visiting artists and residency programs, expanding creative opportunities for filmmakers and the general public alike.