Decolonial cyanotyping
misery x Bethnal Green Nature Reserve
London
2023
As a longstanding part of her practice, Maymana Arefin uses a photographic printing process called cyanotyping (or ‘solar printing’) - from the Greek word cyan, which means "dark blue" - to record the impressions of plant matter and other organic materials.
Having adopted this technique for almost a decade, she now teaches the process of making cyanotypes, whilst also unpacking the colonial legacies entrenched in this method historically.
The following photographs were taken at a community Decolonial Cyanotyping workshop that Maymana offered for misery, a sober mental health collective for queer, trans and non-binary people of colour in London.