Rachel Thomson approaches wasteful culture through cyanotype photograms

Using the crudest and earliest form of cameraless photography, she documents ambiguous forms made out of plastic removed from the environment.

Rachel Thomson trained in photography and print media at Central St Martins and is an artist based at THIStudio London. She makes images using cyanotype, etching and monotype, exploiting the unpredictability of these analogue mediums she allows the unexpected and imperfections to inform the outcome.

For the past six years she has been working with scrap materials and low tech methods of reproduction, as a response to mass production and a wasteful culture. Using the crudest and earliest form of cameraless photography-the cyanotype photogram, she documents ambiguous forms made out of plastic removed from the environment. What began as expediency, a combination of what was readily available and what worked well with the technique has developed into a series of images that reflect her fascination with memesis as a mechanisms for survival and her concern over the effects of plastic pollution on other species.

“I didn’t consciously set out to make art that had an environmental message, but it seems to me that art comes from what is around you; right now it would be hard to make art that didn’t include it on some level.”

Rachel Thomson was featured in The Earth Issue. Purchase a copy here. 

See more of Thomson's work here.

Buy Rachel Thomson’s C-Print! View our Pop-Up-Shop