In this episode, we meet Jo Stapleton, an alternative‑process film and darkroom photographer known for her richly experimental approach to analogue image‑making. Jo’s practice spans lith printing, photograms, chemigrams, and cyanotypes, creating constructed photographic realities shaped by models, found objects, collage, and hands‑on darkroom manipulation.
Her work explores themes of memory, biology, the body, common ground, and nature reclaiming space, most notably through her acclaimed series Foreign Bodies and Rewilding. Jo shares how Foreign Bodies grew from darkroom experimentation using domestic glass and histology transparencies, and how Rewilding merges photograms of weeds with film images of classical sculpture to question value systems and the politics of “high art.”
Episode recorded on 1 March 2026.
Website: https://jostapleton-beatniksoupphotography.com/about
Instagram: @beatniksoupphotography
Podcast details:
Podcast email: artiststalespodcast@gmail.com
Website: www.artiststales.net
Instagram: @artists_tales_podcast
Threads: @artists_tales_podcast
