Estimated Price

£4,948

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In relation to the identified priorities in the Guidance & Essential criteria what will your idea achieve and who will benefit from your project?

Fortnightly eco print-making and photography workshops empowering marginalised groups through analogue techniques, sustainability, and visual storytelling, culminating in a powerful public exhibition to celebrate the programme.

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Please describe what you plan to do and what the money will be used for? (i.e., purchase equipment/resources)

A core focus of our work is sustainability. We’re developing a programme of fortnightly workshops running from July 2025 to November 2025, culminating in a public exhibition of participants’ work in December 2025. The programme is rooted in sustainability, creativity, and critical thinking — offering hands-on, accessible learning through analogue photography and eco-conscious printmaking techniques. These sessions explore analogue photography and eco-conscious printmaking methods such as risograph printing, which uses soy-based vegetable inks and creates minimal waste.

We will also experiment with natural food dyes, making paper from onion skins and other food scraps — using these creative processes as an entry point to wider conversations around food systems, food waste, and sustainability. Through this, participants not only develop artistic and practical skills but also gain a deeper understanding of environmental impact and how small actions can inspire meaningful change.

Addressing creativity, visual storytelling, communication skills and a technical understanding of the basic chemistry of the process in an environmentally safe way will engage an excluded generation who have only known a device based digital world. Enabling them to document lives and environment, take ownership of their own lived experiences and their relationship to the local community.

 

We hope to empower young people to access their own creative ability and be in control of an analogue process to create truthful expression and narratives that are not manipulated.

Person to person communication skills through visual storytelling will have a positive mental health benefit alongside the real skills that improve confidence, capabilities and employability.

We’ve delivered multiple workshops to community groups and the public, often with no funding, simply to keep costs low and make them accessible. But to continue offering these invaluable skills and resources sustainably, we now need funding support.

While we’ve struggled to build consistent momentum due to lack of core funding, we’ve seen first-hand the huge impact our work has when organisations like Ayrshire Drugs Alliance or Belmont Secondary School have had their own funding to book us. These collaborations have allowed us to run group sessions with real, positive outcomes — especially for people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to access this kind of opportunity.

Funding would allow us to offer open access workshops in food based eco-friendly photography and print-making processes utilising recycled equipment to provide the maximum response to the climate emergency.