You’ll have no doubt heard of The Impossible Project, the chaps – enthusiasts and former Polaroid employees – who saved instant film. Sounds like one of them melodramatic declarations, but they quite literally did. Taking over the Polaroid factory in Enschede, The Netherlands – the last of the company’s factories to be shut down – the team saved some 300 million Polaroid cameras from extinction. That’s the work of superheros, real pant-wearing analogue superheros. Of course they didn’t stop there, possibly looking to the international success of Lomography, The Impossible Project set about creating spaces around the world… Tokyo, New York, Vienna, and now Paris.
And this is, by far, the best any of their spaces have looked – in what looks like a former butchers, or rickety old deli, the instant film stocked cold-food chiller is picture perfect in itself, whilst the old-skool peg letter board keeps things strictly analogue. Located in the city’s hipster haven, Haut Marais, and stocking refurbed Polaroid cameras, books, prints, magazines – and of course their very own film; here’s a real life mecca for digital-denialists.
Photo © Eglantine Aubry
Impossible Factory Enschede,
by Christian Reichholde
Photo © Eglantine Aubry
Impossible Factory Enschede,
by Christian Reichholde
Photo © Eglantine Aubry
Impossible Factory Enschede,
by Christian Reichholde
Photo © Eglantine Aubry
Photo © Eglantine Aubry
Impossible Factory Enschede,
by Christian Reichholde
