Bushwick Community Darkroom is raising money to reinstate its lease and cover immediate operational costs. Founder Lucia Rollow said the past few years have been destabilizing for the space at 334 Himrod Street.
Rollow laid out the situation in an email to Bushwick Daily. She started the darkroom in 2011. For almost 15 years, she wrote, it has operated as a shared resource for photographers, students, artists and neighbors who need access to tools they could not afford on their own: darkroom space, film developing, scanning, workshops, exhibitions and community events.
The trouble started before the current lease. The darkroom lost its previous space in 2023 and rebuilt from scratch at Himrod Street, near the DeKalb L. That move, Rollow wrote, ended up far more expensive and difficult than expected, including major construction delays and a contractor who disappeared with $10,000.
Since then she has kept the space running on membership dues, classes, events, film services and, in her words, a lot of unpaid labor. The GoFundMe campaign, organized by independent filmmaker Sasha Brunetti of Ceaseless Media, aims to reinstate the lease and cover immediate operational costs.
The campaign’s stated goal is $39,000, and Bushwick Daily has not independently reviewed the darkroom’s finances or lease documents.
She said former students, members, artists and neighbors have come forward over the last few weeks to describe what the space has meant to them, including people who found photography there during major turning points in their lives.
“That response has made it clear to me that this is not just about saving one small business,” Rollow wrote. “It’s about whether a space like this can continue to exist in Bushwick at all.”
The darkroom has several community events scheduled. Rollow said the events will bring people together to talk about the space’s future. The schedule is posted at bushwickcommunitydarkroom.com/events and on the darkroom’s Facebook page.
Featured image: Courtesy gofundme.com
