Michel Campeau / Darkroom (2005-2006)
Arnos Vale Cemetery X Martin Parr Foundation
17 SEP – 20 DEC

Darkroom by Michel Campeau reflects on the mortality of the photographic medium through intimate depictions of analogue darkrooms. The works presented here are drawn from the original book of the same title, published by Nazraeli Press as part of a series edited by Martin Parr. This exhibition marks Michel Campeau's first solo exhibition in the UK.

Through this display in the Anglican Chapel Crypt at Arnos Vale Cemetery, Campeau’s photographs show darkroom spaces as haphazard or obsolete in the face of digital technologies, whilst also revealing them as personal, human environments marked by improvised adaptations and DIY interventions giving them a fragile, idiosyncratic presence.

“By choosing to revisit the production sites of film photography, I opted for the aesthetic of the crime scene investigator who, while examining the scene of the crime, casts a harsh light on the near-darkness of the space, the sealing off of stray light, the mechanics of the enlargers, the jumble of electrical equipment, the zigzagging plumbing, the splashes of silver salts, the corrosion of the equipment, and the countdown of the timers defying the disappearance of the panchromatic spectrum. Between 2005 and
2010, I photographed nearly 300 darkrooms—those of artists, photographers, and commercial labs, as well as news agencies, educational institutions, museums, archives, and photography clubs.”
– Michel Campeau, 2026.

Untitled, 2005-2006, From the series Darkroom. © Michel Campeau

The Anglican Chapel Crypt at Arnos Vale is ordinarily used to store tools and objects relating to the burial process, providing further opportunity for interesting connections to Campeau’s images of darkroom apparatus. Campeau's Darkroom, installed within this environment, invites new interpretations and further reflection on the mortality of photographic medium, labour, and the spaces that sustain them.

This exhibition has been produced by Martin Parr Foundation to accompany the MPF exhibition Dark Tales: British Documentary Photography and the Gothic, curated by Isaac Blease. Both Dark Tales and Darkroom are part of the Bristol Photo Festival 2026 programme.