【QUEER ANALOG DARKROOM】
QUEER ANALOG
DARKROOM
DARKROOM
QAD - Queer Analog Darkroom - is a self-organised, inclusive, skill-sharing collective for (analogue) photography and visual arts in Berlin. The team consists of eight people who all contribute a wide range of different skills and knowledge in the field of photography: Mia-Marina Maganić, Ley Mauthofer, Gabi de Luca, Eden Jetschmann, Cy Klock, Jasper J. Maurer, Nikita doVale Reimann and Naim Kraus. Next to offering access to a darkroom chamber, they organise events and collaborate with people from diverse backgrounds in workshops and exhibitions.
Darkrooms in particular are a space that is difficult to access for many people. Structural inequalities such as classism, racism and a cis-heteronormative majority society mean that many people are either excluded from such spaces from the outset or cannot feel safe in them. QAD wants to address those excluded, fight against these structures together and keep analog photography alive.
QAD was founded in 2022 in Oyoun, a decolonial, queer*feminist and migrant cultural center in Berlin-Neukölln. After hosting a “Ceremony of Mourning and Hope” organised by the association “Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East” in the end of 2023, Oyoun received a letter from the Berlin Senate of Culture stating that the cultural center will lose its funding and has to leave the premises. They subsequently collected funds to finance the legal case against the Cultural Senate. As a result of these events, QAD had to leave Oyoun.
The collective recently found a new location at Atelier Gardens in Berlin, where they are building up an analogue darkroom from scratch with the help of volunteers. QAD wants to not only promote the understanding and appreciation of queer photography, but also to build a supportive community of photographers who are committed to the visibility and recognition of queer voices in photographic practice in the future.