Since starting in 2011, The Photocopy Club has curated over 50 open calls, exhibitions and workshops across the UK, Europe, Asia and US.
The Photocopy club started as a simple idea.
To exhibit photographers work at as low a cost as possible for the photographer.
With Photography submission programmes having high entrance fees, we wanted come up with a way that levelled the playing field and made exhibiting photography accessible to everyone.
We also wanted to make photography more afforadble to the genral public so all the submissions were avalible to buy straight off the walls at the end of the show for £5.
This got people excited about owning one off pieces of work. We wanted it to feel like a giant zine that everyone could take a page from.
Starting in 2011 in Brighton, founder Matt Martin came up with the idea of people submitting their work as Black and White Photocopies. No theme, no size restrictions. The work just had to be printed on a photocopier in Black and White.
We started with 6 bi -monthly exhibitions between Brighton and London, with the first in Brighton in November 2011. The project exploded, with photography being sent from across the globe. The 1st exhibition received over 300 photocopy photographs from 60 photographers.
Below are some examples of the exhibitions we have displayed over the last 10 years.
THE PHOTOCOPY CLUB NUMBER 1 - 2011
It all began here. An open call to make a photography exhibitions as affordable as possible, with no set theme. Just black and white and printed on a photocopier. The first exhibition received an amazing amount of work. It was great to see that months of planning was all coming togther and you could feel the wheels were in motion for something great!
THE PHOTOCOPY CLUB 2 - BEACH GALLERY LONDON 02.02.12
OUR FIRST LONDON EXHIBITION! We hit the road and headed to Beach Gallery on Cheshire street for the first London show! We covered this small basement gallery with every submission! The place was rammed and was amazing to recive such a welcoming for the 2nd exhibition
THE PHOTOCOPY CLUB 3 - 25.4.12
Back to Brighton for the 3rd Photocopy club. After the success of our first London show, it was great to see so many more people joining the club and submitting work.
THE PHOTOCOPY CLUB x
HUCK MAGAZINE 2012
2012 saw the 4th instalment of Photocopy club in London! We teamed up with Huck Magazine to put on a show in their gallery space 71a. The exhibition saw work submitted from all over the world and this is when we could really feel the project starting to grow and reach further.
THE PHOTOCOPY CLUB 5
The 5th installment saw us take over the Brighton Fringe in October 2012. We were given the space over a month and did a new exhibition every week, ending with a photocopy club exhibition.
THE PHOTOCOPY CLUB 6 - BEACH LONDON 25.11.12
So number 6 was ment to be the last photocopy club. The original idea was to only do 6 exhibitions over the year. But as we all know how the story goes that didnt last long and photocopy club was back before you could say Xerox and Destroy.
This time we covered the whole of BEACH gallery and shop and packed it out in full photocopy madness.
NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL PHOTOGRAPHY x ONE GIANT ARM
January 2013 saw TPC team up with our friends ONE GIANT ARM, for a new series of exhibitions called NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL PHOTOGRAPHY. The exhibition selected 20 photographers printing their work in large format photocopies. We also had a zine fair and zine exhibition room on display at the diving centre in Bristol.
XEROX AND DESTROY - 2013
In 2013 we headed to Doomed Gallery for the first in a new series of Skateboarding exhibitions. This was the first of series of exhibitions collaberting with Doomed Gallery Dalston. From 2014 this space would become the home of TPC and Matt would start his journey as the cuartor of the space along side the founder Ken Flaherty. This was an amazing show and really kick started TPC into being part of the London community.
RIOT 2013
Riot saw us back at Doomed Gallery for an exhibition on protest photography in collaberation with photographer Marc Vallee. This was an amazing show becasuse right up until the deadline there were protests going on and people were sending work pretty much live as things were going on. We had work in the show that had been shot less then a week before exhibiting.
NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL PHOTOGRAPHY 2 X PROTIEN GALLERY LONDON 2013
We teamed up with Protien Gallery for the next installment of NTWICP - We selected 10 photographers each and displayed them in the gallery. This were really fond memories as it was the start of a relationship with curator Helen Ralli, who we would work with on other projects for the next 10 years.
YOU - TPC x TIM AND BARRY
We teamed up with Tim and Barry in 2013, doing a pop up exhibition of there work documenting the UK Grime scene.
HONG KONG: ADVENTURE AND THE OCEAN 2013
September 2013 saw the Photocopy Club head off on the first overseas tour! Invited to put togther an open call in Hong Kong and exhibit the works in Harbour City shopping center. This was an amzing oppertunity and was great to be able to take the photocopy club to a new audience and out of the normal gallery system, putting the work directly into a space that could be seen by everyday people. The theme was adventure and the ocean and we had over 100 photographer submit work to the exhibition.
FAMILY POLITICS x PHOTOWORKS x JERWOOD
The end of 2013 saw us start our collaboration with photoworks, putting togther an exhibition at the Jerwood as part of thier family politics exhibition.
BERLIN 2014
In 2014 TPC traveled out to Berlin to do an exhibition at Urban Spree. We had no theme for this exhibition and was great to show so many amazing photographers work in the city!
The space was grreat and perfect fit for the work and even though we through we throught we had lost all the work after the plane didn’t put our parcel on the flight, we got it back in time to install and set up the show!
BLOW UP 2011 - 2014
Blow up was an exhibition of archive work from past exhibitions between 2011 and 2014. It was hosted at Doomed Gallery in London.
LETS GET XEROXING x Michael Jang 2015
Lets get xeroxing was a collaberation bewtween us and photographer Michael Jang in San Fransisco in 2015 at Book and Job Gallery. This was one of my favourtite exhibitions, teaming up with Michael. We had a curated collection of his prints alongside an open call with no theme - Was a stand out show for the club!
XEROX AND DESTROY 2: EXETER
In 2016 we headed to Exeter for Unveil’d Photo Festival, bringing our wheat paste Xerox and Destroy exhibition to the streets of the city.
HIT THE ROAD - FOTOFESTIWAL, LODZ, POLAND
We were ask to be part of Fotofestiwal in Lodz, Poland in 2016, setting the theme HIT THE ROAD for our open call.
LONDON CALLING 2018
In 2018 we were invited to be the closing exhibition at V3 in Waterloo. Our open call was all about London! It was an amazing venue and the first time we collaberated with screen printers Giant Triplets.
