Ancient Light: Rematerialising The Astronomical Image, A PhD Journey.

Melanie King is a working class artist and curator, originally from Manchester, UK. Melanie is now based in Ramsgate, Kent, UK. She is co-Director of super/collider, Lumen Studios and founder of the London Alternative Photography Collective. She is currently Artist In Residence at the School of Metallurgy and Materials at The University of Birmingham, from Feb 2021 to June 2022. Melanie is a PhD Candidate at the Royal College of Art (2015-2022). She is Lecturer In Photography at Canterbury Christ Church University. Melanie is interested in the relationship between the environment, photography and materiality.  Melanie intends to highlight the intimate connection between celestial objects (sun, moon, stars), photographic material and the natural world. Melanie is currently researching a number of sustainable photographic processes, to minimise the environmental impact of her artistic practice, informed by the Sustainable Darkroom movement. 

Melanie's 2021-2022 project "Precious Metals" considers  the materiality of silver and palladium, from the production of silver and palladium within the cosmos, extraction from Earth and its uses within our society. This project focuses on their use in photography, suggesting methods of using the material that is less harmful to the ecology of the Earth. 

Her PhD practice-based research "Ancient Light: Rematerialising The Astronomical Image" considers how light travels thousands, if not millions of years, before reaching photosensitive film or a digital sensor.  Her main body of photographs “Ancient Light” comprises  of analogue photographs of star-scapes, as well as a series of images created using telescopes and observatories around the world.