“On Wednesday, 18 October, we host the first special event in the Foam x Polaroid series. Join us as we welcome a photographic artist Rhiannon Adam, who will share about the legacy of Polaroid, her affinity with instant photography, and how this has shaped her practice.”

About the series: Foam x Polaroid

Foam and Polaroid team up to host a series of artist talks and student workshops dedicated to the captivating world of Polaroid photography. This four-part series delves deep into the Polaroid phenomenon, exploring it through the lenses of art, science, experimentation, and technology, unravelling its social and cultural heritage and impact. 

Each event is headlined by an acclaimed camera artist known for their creative use of Polaroid photography and pushing the boundaries of what instant film can do. Throughout the evening, they will engage in an artist talk to discuss their work, their perspectives on the storytelling possibilities, and the enduring relevancy of this unique medium.  

Rhiannon Adam began her obsessive journey with instant photography as a teenager, and even wrote her high school dissertation on the medium. She was later commissioned by Thames and Hudson to write "Polaroid: The Missing Manual", for which she spent months in MIT and Harvard’s archives conducting research. Adam is one of the most knowledgeable experts on Polaroid film, and a key figure in the instant photography community known for her portraiture and complex emulsion lifts.

Her passion for Polaroid photography and the materiality of the photographic image is a continuous thread within her own work: research-based, long-form, social documentary projects that make use of analogue photographic processes and archive material.