Jamnesia

PHOTOGRAPHY

Jan 5

Jamnesia is a meditation on obsession, endurance, and queer presence inside chaos. Colliding roller derby’s radical, bruised community with the unforgiving ritual of wet plate collodion, the project celebrates failure, devotion, and bodies that persist. It is about showing up – again and again – for art, impact, and belonging.

Words and Photography Nitrate Fox

Jamnesia is the art of being present in chaos: the acceptance of failure in pursuit of a perfection that can never be reached.

Why roller derby? Why wet plate collodion?

The simplest answer is obsession. Both worlds demand an absurd level of devotion. You invest time, money, and physical labour with no guarantee of reward. In a culture that worships efficiency and instant gratification, derby skaters and alternative process photographers keep showing up for something slow, difficult, and unforgiving — because they can’t imagine doing anything else.

There is a red thread of masochism woven through these subcultures. To love derby or wet plate, you must be willing to suffer, to fail repeatedly, and to find joy in the struggle.

Roller derby has long been a haven for queer and gender-expansive people like me. In a moment when trans and queer athleticism is publicly questioned, this sport celebrates bodies of every shape and gender. Wet plate, by contrast, has historically been exclusive — driven predominantly by the white male gaze. Jamnesia bridges those realities. It invites derby’s radical welcome into a space that has resisted change, through my own queer and feminine perspective.

That is what Jamnesia is about: the beautiful madness of people who keep showing up — for the art, for the hit, for the community. I stand in the collision point of these two worlds, as both player and plater, held together by a shared, stubborn, shimmering thread.

“In a moment when trans and queer athleticism is publicly questioned, this sport celebrates bodies of every shape and gender.”

You can purchase a limited edition of Jamnesia: The Alternative Art of Athleticism Photobook here

A 206-page fine art photobook that captures the raw energy, intimacy, and visual power of modern roller derby through alternative photographic processes.

About Nitrate Fox

Nitrate Fox (Britt Bradley) is an award-winning alternative process photographer and museum professional whose work reclaims the historic lens of wet-plate collodion to examine power, gender, and the politics of looking. Working with tintypes and ambrotypes, she creates images that feel simultaneously ancient and electric—handmade photographs that linger like ghosts.

Bradley is a 2025 Critical Mass Top 50 winner, recognised for her most recent ongoing body of work exploring visibility, resilience, and the subculture of roller derby.

Her photographs have been exhibited through the Center for Photographic Art, the San Francisco Arts Commission, Photos de Femmes, the Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, and the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival, among others.

Her museum practice includes stewarding the archives of American photography, from Andrew J. Russell and Dorothea Lange to Anne Brigman and Joanne Leonard. The past is not theoretical for her—it is something she holds, catalogues, and protects.

She earned her B.A. in Photography from California State University, Sacramento, studying under Nigel Poor and Douglas Dertinger, and later trained in wet-plate collodion with France Scully Osterman in Rochester, New York, and with David Emitt Adams and Claire A. Warden in Benabbio, Italy. Her mobile darkroom brings live tintype portraiture and historic process demonstrations to festivals, galleries, and community spaces across the country.

To see more of her work, visit her website or follow her on Instagram

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Jamnesia is a meditation on obsession, endurance, and queer presence inside chaos. Colliding roller derby’s radical, bruised community with the unforgiving ritual of wet plate collodion, the project celebrates failure, devotion, and bodies that persist. It is about showing up – again and again – for art, impact, and belonging.

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JC Verona

Jamnesia

“In a moment when trans and queer athleticism is publicly questioned, this sport celebrates bodies of every shape and gender.”

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