After the revolution, we will no longer rely on the exploitative fast fashion industry. To adapt, femmes must learn to style themselves with the fruits of their own labour. 

Rhubarb is a delicious and useful plant; while classified as a vegetable, in the culinary world it is most often treated and used as a fruit. A queer and trans plant, perhaps, unconcerned about biology and taxonomy, it exists, instead, in its best and salacious form unapologetically.

No one apologizes for serving rhubarb for dessert.

My mom has always cultivated rhubarb, and I’ve always loved this beautiful fruit. When she would pick some from her garden to make a crisp, always a crisp, I would take a stalk, dip it in sugar, and eat it raw.

But we must be careful with rhubarb, for while the stalks are delicious, the leaves contain poisons. We must treat the plant with respect, know the plant, know how to approach the different parts. For the leaves may be poisonous, but they are also useful. When steeped in water, they can make a natural tannin, which is used to help support the mordant in binding dyes to cellulose cloth. 

In other words, you need it to dye cotton.

The leaves and stalks can also be used to brew a strong eco-developer.

Shared between artists working in fiber and analog film, there is no waste. When my friend and fellow artist and troublemaker Melanie told me she wanted to make a film with her luscious backyard rhubarb I was excited. Artistic collaboration can be sustaining, joyful, and life making.

Together we filmed a ritual, a prayer for the revolution, an instructional video about the process of bundle dying a cloth. A necessary step for femme liberation if we are to be fabulous in the revolution (and we are and will be).

And when we finished filming, I realized the Bolex’s variable shutter was closed  the whole time, and I didn’t capture a single image on the film.

So that night I re-read the manual, rewound the film in my darkroom, and prayed for the process. The next day, Melanie and I performed and filmed the rhubarb ritual a second time. It was the same ritual, but different. Every invocation, unique. Everytime collaboration, something new.

We filmed about 175ft of 16mm film at 18fps for the scene, which is about six and a half minutes. From an initial look at the film, both rolls have beautiful and usable images on them, but one of the rolls looks absolutely stunning. I think the other roll may have been over-developed a little bit.

Rhubarb Developer (Makes 4L)

Recipe based on Phillip Hoffman’s Eco Developing Process for Kodak 3378* Filmstock.

Ingredients:

• 400g Rhubarb Stalks (Diced)
• 4L Boiling Water
• 360 Washing Soda
• 80g Vitamin C

Preparation:

• Dice the rhubarb stalks then add 4L boiling water
• Steep the mixture in the sun for 1+ hours.
• Cool to 30oC.
• Add the washing soda, and mix well until bubbles stop. 
• Add the Vitamin C, and mix well.
• Use immediately.

Develop Kodak 3378E under red light for about 2 Minutes @ 30 degrees Celsius.