DRKRM MPLS

Mission

DRKRM MPLS (pronounced Darkroom Minneapolis) is an artist-led photography community where emerging artists explore analog as a resistance practice. We foster cultural and artistic activation, kinship through dialogue, freedom through arts education, and care as a way of life. 

Our growth goals over the next two years are to build a wet darkroom, digital printing lab, camera lending library, book lending library, and photobook store, as well as to create education opportunities and mutual aid activities. 

We believe in

1. Creativity as kinship -  We are an analog photography community outside a traditional education system where members learn about themselves and their practice  through sharing space and dialogue with one another.
2.  Analog as a resistance practice - We use the methods of analog photography to resist capitalism’s demands of urgency. Craft is resistance. Process as meditation. 
3. Education as freedom - We advance darkroom access, education, exhibitions, and opportunities outside of institutional barriers such as Universities, secondary schools, and other public facilities with high prices of access. Providing access to equipment and space for artists to build their craft, tell their story through images, and critically engage with mentors. 
4. Equity, vitality, and care as a way of life - We host community conversations that put artistic and cultural production at the center. We are informed by an understanding of mutual aid as direct, reciprocal support where community members provide resources, assistance, and solidarity based on shared needs and mutual respect.

About

DRKRM MPLS (pronounced Darkroom Minneapolis) is a dream for an accessible public analog darkroom outside the limitations of the education system or traditional photographic spaces. Beginning in 2020, DRKRM operated as an autonomous space run by a collective of friends identifying as BIPOC, Queer, or a combination of the two. The facility offered tools and equipment to hand develop and scan film (both color and b/w). Open studio times were provided and staffed to assist individuals, answer questions, or offer 1-on-1 education. 

In addition to a public darkroom, DRKRM was a community gathering space. Working from models of mutual aid and reparation, past activities include free open studios, clothing swaps, fundraisers, and musical activations. Born during the 2020 Minneapolis Uprising, DRKRM members engaged in conversations around collectivity, reparations, unlearning, racial justice and trauma, healing, abolition, and accountability. DRKRM works to be a space where systematic harms are acknowledged, understood, heard, and acted upon.

After almost three years in operation, DRKRM went on hiatus in late 2022 due to an untenable rent increase. Our goal is to reinstate our previous programming as well as grow a robust, organizational framework that provides darkroom facilities and community for analogue photographers in the Twin Cities. Our growth goals over the next two years are to build a wet darkroom, digital printing lab, and camera lending library as well as to create education opportunities and mutual aid activities.

DRKRM is fiscally sponsored by Springboard for the Arts. All donations are tax-deductible.

DrkrmMpls.org