Polaroid's New Life
Equipment in the Polaroid factory, Enschede, Netherlands. Courtesy of the Impossible Project
A co-worker recently informed us of the efforts in the Netherlands to revive and re-invent Polaroid film, dubbed ??The Impossible Project?. We thought we'd time-line a few points for those of you who had not yet heard or have not yet visited the Impossible Project??s website.
1948: Birth of instant photography
June 2008: Interest and investment in traditional photographic practice continues to wane and elements and chemicals used in the creation of the instant film are no longer readily available. Polaroid stops producing the film.
June/July 2008: Interested parties start a global campaign for the return of the film.
October 2008: With the help of Austrian artist and businessman Florian Kaps (creator of Polanoid.net, an online Polaroid collection and community of photogs who use the medium), Impossible Project begins. The group signs a ??10-year lease agreement on the factory building? and engages ??the most experienced team of Integral Film experts worldwide? (according to Impossible??s site) in order to develop a new film product that will work in these much loved devices.
2009/2010: If several expected challenges are overcome, new integral instant film is expected to hit shelves at the end of 2009 (just in time for the gift-giving season, I hope!). No word yet on how much it will cost.
Read the NYT feature and check out the Impossible Project site, complete with countdown (the diagram of the ??typical integral film pack?? was especially enlightening to me).
-- Sarah Miller