Building Community Through Photography: An Interview with Jessi Bowman of FLATS

On a sunny day in early March, I had the pleasure of sitting down at the outdoor patio of Candente Mexican restaurant with Jessi Bowman, the founder and director of FLATS. Soon, our table was stuffed with fajitas and margaritas, and we spent several hours eating, sipping, and talking about all things photography. I came away from that afternoon feeling I had learned so much and felt even more curious than when I arrived, which is what the best conversations can do. Jessi began FLATS nearly ten years ago as a small, nomadic photography exhibition space, utilizing friends’ apartments to curate local photographers. Today, FLATS includes a busy film processing lab, darkroom classes, a community darkroom with professional equipment, a continuous stream of exhibitions, a journal, an annual photo-zine market, crit nights, workshops, and a shop where you can buy film and merch. Jessi has intentionally grown an ambitious yet organic business on her own terms. 

For photographers working in analog film, there is the persistent concern of how and where to print their photographs. At FLATS, photographers are able to rent the darkroom along with other sophisticated equipment like chemicals, scanners, lenses, and enlargers. Or, if you’re not into chemicals and DIY, you can simply drop your film off at the lab or in a twenty-four-hour drop box at various locations around town and let the professionals do it for you. In our current era of mass digitization, no one needs an outdated analog camera anymore. No one needs film. So, what is more radical than operating a business based upon a belief in the universality and relentlessness of analog technologies? Perhaps that is precisely the beauty in Jessi’s everyday choices, as she carefully tends her garden of obsolete media. Her daily care is given to an antiquated form of communication that reaches deeply into our analog past. She helps preserve and proliferate over a century of knowledge of a critical material medium.

Cammie Tipton (CT): FLATS is the foremost community darkroom in Texas. Outside of Chicago and New York City, there is nothing like what you are doing — in terms of wide community engagement, ambition, and fecundity. When you began nearly ten years ago, what was your inspiration? How did you evolve into what you are today? 

Jessi Bowman (JB): There was a need and a craving for people to be around. I was working at Houston Center for Photography (HCP), and we were working with a Brooklyn-based photo organization called Photoville. They do a photo event out of shipping containers and they do this thing called The FENCE, and I helped put together three or four iterations of that here in Houston, and I began talking to them about their photo community in New York. I thought, “I don’t think I have that down here.” 

I was inspired by the places I was working or had worked, like HCP and FotoFest, and how they all got started and grew into an international presence. My initial thought was, “How do I just hang out with more photographers? They’re here. We have a university that teaches photography, and people are graduating in that field. Where are they? I want to hang out with them.” I was focusing on curating at the time. I had curated a show at HCP about gun control called Sightlines, which was really topical at the time—and still is. I had gone on to co-curate the Talent in Texas show at HCP and FotoFest in 2017. 

I was interested in growing that aspect of my career. At HCP, I was assisting in the selection of artists, doing the layout, and was able to curate. I asked myself, “How do I do more of that and create this community I desire?” I literally emptied out my apartment. And now it’s been ten years since my Scottish neighbor asked, “You’re putting on an exhibition in your flat?” And I said, “Yeah, and I’m going to call it that.” The turnout was insane. A lot of the artists didn’t know each other, so it was really cool to have them hang out. Then people asked me, “Will you do this in my house?” and it became a traveling exhibition series. I did about three or four a year for the first four years until Covid. 

CT: Do you feel like word just got around? People thought, “This is something different. This is more grassroots, community-oriented.” A place where people felt like they could actually get involved? It doesn’t matter what level you get to in this art world, the gallery space is intimidating. I don’t care if you just started out or you’ve been doing this for ten years. Even today, I walk into a gallery space with the crispy white walls, the price list…ugh. 

JB: Oh, just the thought of those spaces gives me anxiety….

CT: And you think, “I don’t know anybody here. This stuff is so expensive. Don’t touch anything!” That is why I think there is something truly remarkable about your space. You feel like you can walk in, and you’re not going to be intimidated. It’s going to be welcoming, and you’re going to meet cool people. That’s remarkably special.

JB: My intention was to break down these white wall gallery-style things because I saw how inaccessible those places were, having worked in those spaces. I heard how people said they didn’t feel welcome. I even tried to get my friends to come to things, and they were like, “Ahhhh, I don’t know…” 

I don’t want to make this community just for other photographers. I want to make it for people who want to hang around art. I want to make it accessible for starting collections. That was a big part of it, seeing yourself in a home — as opposed to a gallery — and being comfortable in this homey space. These photographers being together and bringing their friends brought a lot of layers to it.  

I looked at other spaces. I looked at the International Center for Photography (ICP) because they have a darkroom and a gallery space. I looked at The Darkroom, in San Francisco, a photo lab and a darkroom printing place. I was looking at these places that were doing different elements of what I wanted to do, like Safe Light (Berlin), which has an exhibition space and a photo lab. So, I knew it could work, but I didn’t get honed in on one particular space to model myself after. As someone who had never started a business, I just wanted to know if these things were feasible, and I saw in a few examples that they were. I am so thankful to Fresh Arts for continuing to sponsor me throughout these years. It has been beneficial to be fiscally sponsored by Fresh Arts. It has been incredibly helpful in growth and in being able to experiment. I have a great team for which I’m responsible. I did not expect the lab to be so dominant, and my team runs the lab now. They help manage classes and the community darkroom. We currently employ three full-time, plus me, and one part-time. 

CT: Next year, FLATS will be celebrating its tenth anniversary. Next year is also FotoFest’s fortieth anniversary. Houston Center for Photography will be changing its location to an expanded site. This truly feels like a moment for the Houston photo-scene. Are you all in conversation about this? How would you like FLATS to be involved in this 2026 moment? 

JB: I think you’re right. It is definitely going to be a moment. I have always been inspired by the photo hub that is Houston. That is the main reason I haven’t left here. I am excited that I got to see HCP turn forty, and now I get to see FotoFest turn forty as well. I haven’t had any direct conversations about this, but I am excited for potential ways to collaborate. It’s hard because we’re all so busy. We’re all understaffed and doing a lot! One way I would love for us to come together is a photobook fair. For the past few years, FLATS has done a photo zine and book fair called Uncle Bob’s Zine Market, which came out of a collaboration with Brenda Franco, a photographer, and Anastasia Kirages, who works with Zine Fest Houston. It started as a zine market, and more recently, we have been thinking that photobooks are such a huge deal.

Photobooks make up a big portion of the art book market, and zines are mostly self-published. So we began asking, “What are independent bookmakers in Texas doing?” We would love to expand Uncle Bob’s into a big book fair that happens in Houston, maybe alongside the FotoFest Biennial. I think it would be the next step in the photo hub, that is Houston. It would be a great way for us photo folks to collaborate. Anastasia, Brenda, and I couldn’t make it that big on our own, and I know that would be just another thing on any other organization’s plate, so I think it would be a smart way to collaborate. 

We call it Uncle Bob’s because Uncle Bob is your uncle who doesn’t know how to use the camera. He fumbles and takes pictures of himself, and he is the one always asking about the photographer’s camera gear at the wedding. It’s just a cheeky thing. I would love to see Uncle Bob’s taken to new heights. So far, we have focused on Texas photo zine and bookmakers, but we would love to expand that to include more of the South. Because I’ve been to different book fairs in New York and LA — I went to the ICP photobook fair recently — and we (FLAT Files) were the only publishers from our region. The South needs a photo book fair!

There’s so much self-publishing in photobooks. We want to focus on a market that uplifts independent small presses based in the South Central United States and potentially Mexico as well. I think you see a lot of self-publishing in photography because there are a lot of zine & book-making websites, and photographers’ work is easily online in digitized form. There are so many of them! There are no big photobook publishers down here, but I would like it to focus on the South Central areas. That all wraps back into our mission of “How are we creating a home base for makers, artists, and creatives in our region?”

CT: The analog refers to modern and pre-modern technologies — the wall clock, the record player, the pen, the shovel, the printing press — all largely based in the material world. I feel there is something deeply romantic about this — almost sensual and life-affirming. The house where you are located is an older home, and when I am there, I have a sense of the past being preserved in a loving way. Analog is a very philosophical notion! Do you think much of the past, in a historical sense? Why continue to preserve the analog photography practice in the era of digital imagery? 

JB: I don’t see it as a technology; I see it as a medium, in the same sense that oil painting and acrylics are mediums. They don’t need to be here either! Oil painting is much more time-consuming, and more expensive; its drying process is longer. That is why acrylic was invented in the first place. There was a time in the early 2000s when you would work in either digital or analog — it was one or the other. One was killing the other one. Now, I think it’s more of a balance where they feed into each other. I know artists who are exhibiting both — digital and analog. I know wedding photographers who are working in both.

I think analog is its own medium. I don’t know if it’s that I’ve been attached to the past, but simply that I enjoy that slow process. I enjoy thinking about my shot, knowing I only have so many shots left. I think there is more depth than in a digital photograph. I think its tactileness — as with any light or lens-based photo, such as cyanotypes or photograms or literally working in the darkroom — is its own form of meditation. I think that it’s easy to think that one form is dying because the other technology is so prevalent in the mainstream world. You think technology is getting better, and you stop using old computers. But even gamers are now using old computers. You don’t need to wipe out one thing and replace it. The new just serves a different purpose. I think it’s a postmodern — or even capitalist — way of thinking. In the early aughts, people thought, “This is going to kill analog because digital is so much easier.” It makes work easier, yeah, but what about art? What about just personal practice? I think the dust has settled a bit, and we’ve now settled into where analog’s placement is. Financially, digital is simpler; it has its place, but it doesn’t need to have erased another thing. I think the only scary part right now is the financial side.  

CT: How much do you charge to develop a roll? 

JB: Our cheapest is $8. A roll of film is $10, and eggs are about to be $10. But that’s another political tangent. “Stay broke, shoot film” is a film world slogan.  

CT: One of the elements of your mission that has impressed me the most is your continuous assertion that artists working in Houston, and Texas in general, should not feel they must move away from Texas to jump-start the next stage of their career. I think of all the fantastic artists who never abandoned Texas for New York or L.A. and the “what ifs” still surrounding their legacies (Vernon Fisher, Kermit Oliver, Dorothy Hood, etc.). What kind of support is FLATS able to extend to photographers that enables them to thrive in Houston?

JB: At the base of it, a lot of our support is from the community. I think many people feel they have to move away because not only do they feel they don’t have the outlets, but they don’t feel like they have enough people to talk about photography with or practice next to. Photography can be isolating. So, people are thinking, “Where do we practice together?” You get that at university, but where do you get it after? I think that community is the baseline of it. It is the throughline of everything we do. Also, we try to support photographers with exhibitions, the publication, classes, and our tiered membership level for our darkroom space. Our darkroom space not only offers them equipment to develop their film but also space to enlarge and digitize it, and we’re currently fundraising to get printers. We have a tiered membership level that starts at a $30 day pass, and you can come in for the whole day. We try to make all of this extremely accessible. We also follow the W.A.G.E. model (Working Artists and the Greater Economy) with our artists. With our projects, we try very hard to meet those standards. Any honorarium includes FLATS covering supplies and printing (depending on the project), so we are trying to help them build their portfolios. In some cases, we have supported artists a few times — maybe they were in our magazine, then in an exhibition, or vice versa. We are continuing to give different outlets and financial support as much as we can. 

CT: It should not be underestimated. You can go into the gallery, look around, go to an opening, take a class, hang out in the community space upstairs, and talk to other artists. 

JB: A big part of our exhibitions has been connecting artists who might not even know each other. We’ve had artists end up working together. Our community space is a space of new learning and re-learning. We’ve had members from eighteen to eighty working next to each other, side by side. That is its own magical thing to see. We also have a very ethnically diverse crowd, and we’ve worked very hard to make sure that people feel included, and we’ve gotten to do that from the very beginning. Our vibe has always been a little punk rock on my side, and my team has always been a little western. So, we’ve started to lean into this punk rock western vibe. The West is a little punk rock, anyway! Red dirt, old country music was very punk rock!  

CT: I definitely got the punk rock vibe when I walked into FLATS. You’re doing the thing, but you’re doing it so differently than anyone else in Texas. You are saying, “I’m going to do this bold thing, and I’m doing it on my terms.” 

JB: You can see it in our commercial online. It is shot along the Buffalo Bayou. We did not get any permits for that! (laughter). Photography is punk rock in itself. It was a medium where people said, “No, you can’t be an art form,” and people said, “You want to bet? Yes, I can!” 

CT: At the helm of FLATS, you have put together many exhibitions, which seem to be getting more elaborate! A few months ago, you curated a remarkable photo exhibition in a large warehouse in the East End titled Transient Vistas. If you had zero limitations, what would be your dream exhibit to curate?  

JB: My curation is an art practice in its own right. At several points, I’ve delved into this idea of an exhibition about humor in photography. I think depicting humor in art is hard, period. There is a great issue of Aperture about humor.  It’s a niche all its own, and there are very few people who do it, and even fewer who do it intentionally. Finding that just within this region is hard. Another thing I would be very interested in doing is some curatorial residencies abroad. Within those curatorial residencies, I’d love to bring in Southern artists. I would love to expose Southern artists to international audiences. I would love to go to Berlin and do a curatorial residency and exhibit a show — a concept — that would only be Southern artists in those spaces. Though the show’s concept wouldn’t be the American South. It would be a way to show international audiences that artists living and working here are more than that. I went to Berlin when I was first starting FLATS and worked at Safelight Berlin for three days, and that was so much fun. My restaurant friend was talking about staging, and I thought, “I can do that.” I was just starting the lab, and I just asked them, “Can I come work for you for three days for free?” and they were like, “Yeah! Come on!” They definitely inspired me. (Staging is a practice in the restaurant industry of an unpaid training period where you work and learn alongside professionals).

CT: You publish a photography-centered journal titled FLAT Files (with issue #5 upcoming). The cover of the journal now states, “Southern Photography Journal.” What precipitated this expansion from Texas to now include all of the South? What areas are you specifically interested in and why? 

JB: FLAT Files started during the pandemic when we couldn’t do exhibitions, and we had grant money for exhibitions. I thought, “How do we reallocate grant money? How do we help create new platforms?” During the pandemic, people felt the need to express themselves more than ever, and I asked, “How do I continue the mission of allowing people to express themselves? If I print something and make something that needs to sell, should Houston or Texas be the only focus?” We kept calling the focus area South Central — Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. They’re not getting the platforms that other locations are. Especially in the art world, people don’t include Texas or even Louisiana. They include people photographing these areas, but not a lot of people from these areas. A lot of people tend to be from Virginia or North Carolina. We thought about using the term Third Coast but decided against it. 

CT: I think you should call the region The Gulf of America. 

JB: (laughter). I really just expanded to The South because I got tired of trying to explain what South Central meant. Our internal focus is still on Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas — areas that are underserved in the photography community. I just try to stay regional. This issue is going to be double the size of the others, with more focus on artists and artist’s statements. The magazine and our exhibitions are not specifically analog-based. It is more what I call lens-based, or we could say light-based. I now have a co-editor, André Ramos-Woodard. This is our first issue together, and they have been great. All of this has been such a learning curve. It’s been so fun to do. Our next issue is going to be the biggest issue we’ve ever done. I’m literally learning as I go. 

Two years ago, as the pandemic was lifting, I thought, “Was this just a pandemic baby? Has the enthusiasm died off?” Then we got invited to the ICP book fair, and I went up there, and people were excited about it. People who were working up there and from our region would stop by and say, “Wait, you’re showing artists from there? I moved up here because I didn’t have something like this there!” All of our writers are also from the South — they are curators and teachers from here. It’s the age-old story of being able to see yourself. So, I was like, “I can’t stop this now.”

CT: I absolutely love the new gallery space. This feels so important for young and upcoming photographers right now. You recently christened this space with a pop-up exhibition, “Stick ‘Em Up,” which was a true community event, mostly communicated on social media and by word of mouth. Anyone who wanted to participate secured a 24” x 24” area to do whatever they wanted. It felt so collaborative and organic. What’s next for the new gallery?  

JB: What I really want it to be is a home for artists to have solo exhibitions. I’m not done with our nomadic exhibitions because that’s important for our community and for showing off Houston. But I do think there is such a thing as audience fatigue, and I think that comes with whitewall gallery spaces. People stop showing up to annually scheduled events. I want this space to be for artists to have solo exhibitions because you don’t see a lot of photographers getting that opportunity. So we’re working on that. They will be three to four-month solo exhibitions. That gives us time to do programming around it, and we’re not burning ourselves out in turnover and not creating audience burnout. Everything I’ve ever done has been about, “How do I eliminate me, and my team’s, and our audience’s burnout?” Our first solo artist is going to be Ariana Gomez, she is living and working in Austin. Her work is about the mythic nature of home and family ties to land. That will open on April 11. She participated in our Stick ‘Em Up exhibition. I reached out to her because I could just tell she’s got something. 

We’re doing our first-ever teen summer camp, which we’re still fundraising for, but we’ve raised enough money to officially support the kids and take financial burdens off them. We wanted to get teens genuinely interested in learning photography skills rather than someone who can afford it. We’ll have five teenage kids in our space this summer, and it will culminate in an exhibition on July 18th. The summer camp will end with them having a framed photo to take home. We would like to fundraise for the kids to get their own point-and-shoot cameras and things like that. We’re still working on that. I’m a little nervous to have a bunch of teens in there! But I’m excited, too.  

CT: As a curator who has been pretty deep in the Houston photography scene for a decade, what do you feel you want to see more of now? What are you craving to see and experience here that you feel is missing or has been overlooked?

JB: There have been these waves of guerilla art movements in Houston. HCP and Project Row Houses first started as very guerilla movements, and there have been waves of those in Houston throughout its history. Right before the pandemic, there was a big wave of performance artists. This one show called Trust Me Daddy (2018), was a big warehouse movement of experimental action. All these things were performance art, then the pandemic hit, and those were halted. I think those are starting to come up more, but not as intensely as they were before. I want more of that! I want some raw art. I want things like Box 13 ArtSpace. I want artists to buy a cheap building and just be artists in it together. I want to see more of that here in Houston specifically. I want to see the raw edges of art again. I need some cheap rent for these artists out here so I can just see them doing weird shit again. Everybody is working so hard. I think about the twenty-somethings. They are so tired just trying to pay for groceries and rent that they’re not even able to be the dumb version of themselves they should be.

CT: Do you actually take photographs yourself? Do you consider yourself a photographer (or, like me, simply an ally, lol)? If so, tell me about your practice. 

JB: I do call myself a photographer, but sometimes curation overweighs photographer, and sometimes photographer overweighs curator. ‘Entrepreneur/businesswoman’ always feels like the more backburner title than ‘photographer’ or ‘curator’ to me. I hate the boss aspect! When you label yourself a photographer, people ask, “What kind of photographer are you?” — which I never know how to answer. Sometimes I do feel like a bit of a fraud in that sense, but I am always photographing. If I heard somebody else call themselves a fraud for that I would say, “You are absolutely not a fraud!” I carry my camera with me most places. I spent two years photographing with Polaroids and made a photobook with a small publishing company, Jane. I see them as these little memories. It’s called Yours, Mine, and the Truth (2019). I’ve been obsessed with Polaroids, photobooths, analog, anything that can be shot and put aside, that takes a minute to process, and takes a minute to realize. But if I’m being honest, what comes up first is my curatorial practice. I very much see my curatorial practice as an art practice. 

CT: What in your wildest dreams can FLATS become in the next ten years? Don’t be shy…  

JB: I never thought that FLATS would get this far, so it’s hard to think ten years into the future. I just keep thinking I’m going to ride this wave until it does something else. Ten years ago, when I started it, I thought maybe I’ll do this for two years, and when it stops, I’ll go back to graduate school, or maybe I’ll be a curator, and now here we are. Ultimately, I’ve always wanted to create a FLATS residency. I would love a house residency where we could bring people to stay. I’m very inspired by the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft’s museum residency program. I would love to focus on a residency for local artists and bring artists in to live and work here. 

We are working with Sanman Company right now, and we have a residency program going on with them, which I’m very excited about, where the artist has a studio space at Sanman. They can use our space to create any darkroom work and printing. Also, we are working on providing more class options. I would also really like to focus on masterclasses in the future. I don’t think I’m interested in making it a huge robust program, but I would love a few good masterclasses. Bring somebody in who is working in the analog world to give Houston artists access to these things. I am always conscious of trying not to burn us out. I hate set schedules. I have seen how strict schedules create burnout, which creates large turnover in employees, which creates less institutional knowledge, which creates no long-term interest in the space, which creates audience burnout. It’s a trickle-down effect. If you’re not taking care of yourself, how can you take care of your team, and how can people be interested in your space?

*******

CT: Favorite brand or type of film?

JB: There aren’t that many brands to choose from anymore. Analog is such a space-consuming thing. It takes up so much space in warehouses, that’s why it’s so expensive now. Fuji has always been a bit more muted than Kodak with a bit greener palette, but I’ve always loved Kodak. My favorite Kodak stock that they haven’t made in a while is Ektar 1000. It was speed, high contrast, with low grain, and it was buttery soft. I would die if they brought that back! 

CT: Favorite camera? 

JB:  I use my Contax G2 a lot, but I have an abusive relationship with that camera. I’ve probably paid more to repair it than I have actually gotten use of it.

CT: As someone committed to analog, how do you feel about AI-generated imagery? 

JB: I think it can be a very  helpful tool. I don’t use it so much in the photo world. I use it as a tool in writing because I’m dyslexic/ADHD, and I find it as a very helpful tool there. I think a lot of really cool artists are doing amazing things with it so I’m not entirely against it in that sense. I get scared of it in terms of what fake imagery looks like. The scary question is how realistic can it go? 

CT: Do you have a photography pet peeve? 

JB: Can I say old men? (laughter). We have a small handful of older men who have been amazing supporters, but the older men who gate-keep and mansplain. Drive me crazy! I have found it more in my recent years transitioning into the film lab world. When I’ve been trying to learn about building businesses, I reach out to a lot of people, and these business owners are primarily older men. Some of the men who come into this space see that it’s woman-owned, and the two faces they encounter when they walk in the door are two female-presenting faces, and the way they think they can talk to us is wild. That seems to also go for the twenty-something boys; their tantrum-like behavior blows my mind. Nonprofits (where I began) are female-dominated with many female directors. It was interesting to go from that world into this world of gear-headed photographers, which is so male-dominated. I remember there was Camera Co-op here in Houston that was around until 2015. They were really cool. One of the guys who worked there remembered me even years later. But other camera stores were a lot of gearhead assholes that didn’t want to engage with me. It is important for me that people feel welcome when they walk in the door at FLATS. 

CT: Color or black and white?

JB: Both! I had a professor tell me once that you can’t put color and black and white in the same exhibit, and I said, ‘Watch me.’ I like them both for different aspects and I love them as different teaching tools. When you’re first teaching someone, it’s great to start them in black and white when you’re teaching light exposure and then introduce color to see how warm and cold tones interact. 

CT: Favorite photographer or photo book? 

JB: Ralph Eugen Meatyard’s The Family Album of Lucille Belle Carter. It is so funny! It is dark humor. There’s so much to love about him I don’t know where to start. It’s humorous in how we see our family and our neighbors in their sameness but also their differences. It’s also a dark commentary on suburban mid-America living. It’s laid out like a family album, but everyone dawns an aging Halloween mask and they’re all named Lucille Belle Carter. It’s black and white. Somebody bought me one of the original presses and I about cried. Carter was an optometrist. He would shoot throughout the year, then take two weeks off work and just develop for those two weeks. He has some other bodies of work, but his best stuff is when he would make his kids dress up in these weird costumes and push them off balconies to get a good picture. 

CT: What new piece of equipment do you want/need the most? 

JB: Right now, we’ve got a fair number of enlargers to expand our darkroom, but we’d like to offer some actual inkjet printing for people, and some computers for our digital darkroom area. That’s what we’re doing for our community darkroom space — we will have a 35mm and a medium format darkroom. It’s easier for people to not have to change out the lenses. On the more fun side, we’re trying to get an analog photo booth! 

CT: Favorite restaurant in Houston and why? (This is such a Houston question that I have to ask). 

JB: Candente! That’s why I wanted to come here. And Paulie’s. But Candente is my favorite.