Community + Development.

It’s just a box. Or is it?

Back in 2017 I approached the local school, Wakatipu High School, to see if they would let me use their darkroom. (Both my sons had been students at the school so that’s not as odd as it sounds!)

Those conversations took an unexpected turn. I ended up purchasing the whole darkroom from the school as they were relocating and decided they no longer needed it.

And thus was born the idea of preserving it and keeping it open as a community darkroom for wider access. Support arrived early on in the form of enthusiasts and local creatives who were excited for the idea, and invested time, support and donations to the cause.

Fast forward to today and I’m about to relaunch the Wakatipu Community Darkroom, but this time as a tourist-facing commercial ‘darkroom experience’.

The underlying vision for this project is unchanged: A community hub for locals and visitors to gather around workshops, classes, exhibitions, and residencies, all focused on the wonderful world of making images using analogue techniques, with and without cameras.

I still believe in this as passionately as I did back in 2017. And in fact, maybe the world is catching up with this idea with a few similar ventures taking off around the world.

But life happens. Plans change.

What has remained constant for me and for this project is the sheer goodwill and support from everyone who hears about it. Nothing validates the community side of this project for me, more than that support.

Some years ago I asked a good friend and fluent reo speaker to gift the darkroom with a name in Te Reo. He came up with, Te Ruma po o Whakatipu Hapori. Literally, dark room of Whakatipu community. And while Whakatipu is simply the reo version of Wakatipu, it’s also a word that can mean growth or development.

So either by accident or design, the darkroom is not just about developing film, but also about developing community.

This is a big mihi to everyone who has helped shift boxes, given advice, donated old equipment, shared ideas, gifted funding, loaned tools, skills and time. That support means so much. And at its heart is what this project is all about.

Nga mihi nui ki a koutou.