A number of objects, scissors, tape, plants, on a table — Photo: Samuel Ian McCarthy & Lasse Lindqvist

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Flower Power Photography: Nonviolence, Resistance & Justice through Alt/Exp Photography

Research group

Active research

Website

Flower Power Photography

Project owner

HDK-Valand

Research partners

Konstkollektivet Aic Earth CFF

Area

Sustainability and environment Culture and languages Education and learning

Topic

Photography Ethics Aesthetics Other Humanities Pedagogy Media and Communication Studies Agricultural Biotechnology Biochemistry Plant Biotechnology Bio Materials Materials Chemistry Biochemicals Ecology

Short description

Blossomed out of a contempt for the photographic status-quo, a burning sense of (human and nonhuman) animal injustice, and a playful curiosity for what might be otherwise possible, Flower Power Photography is a collaborative artistic research inquiry exploring nonviolence, collective resistance, and environmental and social justice through alternative and experimental photography practices and pedagogies. The ongoing work is in collaboration between Gothenburg based artist Samuel Ian McCarthy and Senior Lecturer in Photography at HDK-Valand Lasse Lindqvist.

Flower Power Photography (FPP) Artistic Research Group is grounded in critical questions of ecology, sustainability, more-than-human ethics and care, and draws from theory in unconscious materialities that continually act as smokescreens to hidden forms of violence and mortality within photography today.

Close up of a black and white cow looking straight into the camera

Thus far, the research has primarily been conducted through the method of collaborative workshops at HDK-Valand in association with the established framework of Practical Fridays (PF) – a workshop initiative that was created by Lasse Lindqvist in 2018. Over the course of three academic semesters, more than a dozen FPP workshops have been facilitated through PF in various alternative and experimental analogue processes. During this time, Sam and Lasse also facilitated workshops and presented FPP at the PARSE Artistic Research Conference in Gothenburg, HDK-Valand Research Days, and at a KUNO intensive in Finland titled Darkroom Choreography: Analogue Photography in Extended Fields.

In March 2026, spanning over two days, the first FPP Artistic Research Symposium was organised at HDK-Valand, which brought together (local and international) leading researchers, artists, and activist within the field of alt/exp sustainable photography. With the keynote speakers being Edd Carr & Hannah Fletcher from The Sustainable Darkroom in the UK, alongside locally based alumni Fia-Lo Doepel, Tom Zelger, and Anna Hulth.

blank and white image of a man taking a picture

The ongoing research aims to continue expanding its collaborative roots locally, glocally, and internationally, and warmly welcomes collaborative proposals and/or queries of interest.

Flower Power Photography is situated within, as well as in-between, the following Research Clusters at HDK-Valand:

Environment: Ecological and Climate Challenges
The FPP Research Group explores collaborative practices and methods within ecological art and pedagogy, with the vision of developing radical new ways of imagining possible alternative photographic futures that resist and depart from photography’s inherent violent entanglements with other systems such as industrialisation, extractivism, and animal agriculture.
Materialities and Experimental Aesthetics
FPP examines material and ethical issues that move within and define different artistic fields and practices within photography and film. These explorations include critical material experimentation, site-specific workshop practices, more-than-human relations and agency, regenerative photographic pedagogies for social justice, and collaborative practices and networks of exchange.

The research attempts to somewhat transcend and dissolve traditional pedagogical boundaries, exploring how relations between human and nonhuman animals, matter, and discourse are evoked and challenged within and between the extended practices of photography and filmmaking today.

Hands digging in a bowl full with something that looks like seeds

Grounded in the ethical principles of FPP, the Research Group is currently collaborating with Konstkollektivet, AiC Earth, and Centrum for Fotografi (CFF) facilitating residencies, workshops, and collaborative group exhibitions within Västra Götalandsregionen (VGR).

Moreover, Flower Power Photography is currently in the ongoing process of reaching out to collaborate with Universities, Institutions, and Artists who are researching animal free bio-gelatine materials, with the aim of collectively sharing knowledge in pursuit of a plant-based vegan gelatine alternative that can resist and counter the vast use of bovine gelatine within the medium of analogue photography and filmmaking.