Produced on the occasion of Nat Faulkner’s exhibition Strong water at Camden Art Centre, 16 January–22 March, 2026.

1:1 presents an extensive series of hand-produced contact prints by the artist, derived from a single large format image taken by Faulkner of a peppered moth (Biston betularia) – a widely studied example of ‘industrial melanism’. During the Industrial Revolution soot from factories darkened the bark of trees and through a process of natural selection the lighter form of this moth, once well-camouflaged, became more visible to predators and its numbers diminished. Meanwhile, a darker (melanic) variant became more common, due to being better camouflaged against the soot darkened trees. This phenomena, the artist has observed, holds resonances with the processes of photography itself – in the production of positive and negative images.

With texts from Gloria Hasnay and Sean Steadman. Designed by George Haughton.