IN AN INSTANT
From Polaroids to Pop-Tarts
The Polaroid changed the tempo of photography in 1948. With a single click, an image began to surface in your hands, developing in real time as people leaned in to watch. Instant film made memory visible almost immediately, turning the act of taking a photograph into a shared event.
When instant photography burst onto the scene in the mid-20th century, it felt like magic. You pressed the shutter and — within minutes — an image bloomed in your hands. No darkroom. No waiting. Just chemistry, surprise, and a small square memory you could pass around the room.
IN AN INSTANT celebrates that spark of wonder while tracing how the idea of "instant" grew from novelty to norm. From instant photos to instant coffee, instant messaging to instant fame, speed became not just convenience but culture.
This exhibition brings together contemporary instant film works alongside family Polaroids from decades past, snapshots of birthdays, vacations, awkward haircuts, and living rooms frozen in time. These personal archives remind us that instant photography once meant gathering around a developing image, watching memory surface slowly, together.
At the same time, the exhibition highlights artists who have embraced instant film not simply for its nostalgia, but for its unpredictability, intimacy, and material presence. For them, the medium is not a novelty. It is a collaborator, one that resists perfection, invites experimentation, and turns immediacy into a deliberate artistic choice.
Playful and immersive, IN AN INSTANT embraces the humor, nostalgia, and beautiful imperfection of instant film while asking a light but lingering question: When everything happens now, what makes a moment last?
Come for the flash! Stay for the memory!
An Instant Opening Party (save the date instantly!):
5pm, 25 April 2026
instant food, instant photos, music, cash bar on the night
