The main show was a collection of over a thousand SIM card-sized glass prints, each one a miniature image drawn from the personal digital archive of a participant. The miniatures made and worn as a pendant by people with experience of displacement, across workshops in eight (and counting) countries.
The photographs are produced using the wet plate collodion process, a Victorian-era technique adapted for the project's bespoke 3D printed camera and portable darkroom, both of which were demonstrated live at the festival launch on 13 September.
A panel talk followed on Sunday 22 September, where the team presented the project's conceptual and technical evolution, covering analogue and digital photography, 3D printing and jewellery making, alongside stories from participants expressed through the wearable artefacts.
Our contribution to the exhibition extended beyond the digital. The installation design and build were produced in-house, including custom 3D printed tile elements that formed part of the physical environment at the V&A.
The V&A showing marked a significant moment for a project that had grown steadily from its origins in Coventry in 2017. It was the kind of public platform that confirmed The SIM Project not simply as an artistic exercise, but as a serious, ongoing work of applied anthropology with considerable reach.
