Vagabond Archives Tin-Type Portrait Pop-Up w/ Tosin Popoola

Event Description:
Vagabond Archives is a tintype portrait pop-up exploring memory, culture, identity, and the ways people carry home with them. Participants are invited to be photographed in clothing or with an object connected to their culture, family, personal history, or sense of belonging.

Each sitter/group will receive one handmade tintype portrait created through the historic wet plate collodion process. Unlike a standard digital portrait, each tintype is a one-of-one physical object made by hand on a metal plate. The experience is slow, intentional, and rooted in the idea of creating a living archive through portraiture.

Participants are encouraged to wear or bring something meaningful: traditional clothing, inherited garments, jewelry, textiles, religious items, family photographs, flowers, books, or any object connected to memory and home.

Supplies Used:
4×5 camera, lighting, backdrop/set materials, metal plates, wet plate collodion chemistry (collodion, silver nitrate, developer, fixer, rinse water, trays, gloves, protective materials, drying rack, and packaging materials for final plate delivery.

Artist Bio:
Tosin Popoola is a Nigerian-born and raised photographer and registered nurse whose work explores memory, migration, cultural inheritance, spirituality, and the ways history is carried through the body. Working with wet plate collodion tintypes, film, and other analog processes, Popoola creates images that examine identity, family, lineage, and the preservation of personal and collective memory.

His practice is rooted in slowness, care, and collaboration. Through portraiture and material process, he uses photography as a tool for archiving presence, honoring lineage, and asking what people inherit, preserve, and pass on.

Additional Remarks:
Each sitter/group will receive one original tintype plate. Digital scans will be delivered after the event, and the physical plates will be packaged and shipped or delivered after they are fully dried, scanned, and chemically protected.

For the overall experience, I envision serving cold tea while people wait, as I assume the city will be hot that day.