Come celebrate the launch of "Jamnesia", a monograph by Nitrate Fox featuring tintypes of roller derby athletes and culture.
Join Heart's Delight Roller Derby (San Jose's newest roller derby league), for a night of art, music, and all things roller derby, to celebrate the launch of Jamnesia by Nitrate Fox!
When: October 11, 6–9 PM
Where: Empire Seven Studios - 525 N 7th Street, Suite 10, San Jose, CA
Jamnesia is Nitrate Fox's first monograph, showcasing tintype portraits that capture the essence of roller derby skaters and culture. Fully funded on Kickstarter in 2024, following a year of Nitrate Fox traveling the West Coast to shoot portraits in her mobile darkroom, the book is finally here in its full glory!
Celebrate this exciting new book release with an unforgettable evening that brings together derby culture, creativity, and community.
Jamnesia gallery on display at Empire Seven Studios: come see never-before-seen plates being showcased for the first time!
Jamnesia books for sale + exclusive print giveaway
Live DJs spinning by Ritmos Calientes
Open skating (bring your own skates to roll!) and a roller dance class (at 7:30) to get your groove on
Food trucks + drinks
HDRD merch sales so you can rep your local derby league and more!
Don’t miss this one-of-a-kind event, whether you’re an art collector, skater, part of the roller derby community or just curious about the culture, all are welcome!
Project Overview
This project reclaims space for bodies, identities, and expressions long pushed to the margins. The tintypes - heavy with silver and history emphasize the raw presence of each subject and the slow intentional gaze of historical photography. They honor derby’s DIY spirit and its resistance to commodified sports culture, asking viewers to consider: who gets to be seen as powerful? As beautiful? As worthy of documentation? Jamnesia is a love letter to queer resilience, chosen families, and the art of collective defiance. Jamnesia is a portrait of roller derby as both a sport and a subculture - a world where gender-expansive athletes community resilience, and punk feminist ethos collide. Shot entirely using wet plate collodion process across six states and over 50 leagues, the project documents more thank 500 tintypes that preserve the ephemeral, sweat-slicked intensity of a sport often excluded from mainstream narratives. At its core, Jamnesia challenges who gets remembered in athletic history, elevating the overlooked stories of skaters, referees, medics, coaches, and volunteers who sustain this radical and deeply communal world.
The Making of Jamnesia
Jamnesia was created over the course of three years and more than 10,000 miles of travel across the United States. Using the wt plate collodion process a 19th century photographic technique that requires on site chemistry, hand poured plates, and immediate development - every image was made with a portable darkroom, often in roller rinks, community centers, backyards, and parking lots. “I photographed over 500 tintypes across six states working with more than 50 leagues to capture the full spectrum of the roller derby world. The process demanded precision, patience, and a willingness to let things go wrong - a fitting metaphor for the sport itself. Through thunderstorms, broken gear, and countless hours on the road, the heart of this project remained the same. To honor the people who make derby possible, and to meet them on their own turf. “
The Book
The Jamnesia book is a curated monograph that brings together the most powerful image from this three-year journey, accompanied by essays, captions, and reflections from skaters and collaborators within the derby community. Divided into four thematic sections, The Pack, The Village, The Culture, and The Skaters - the book weaves together portraiture, storytelling, and archival aesthetics to create a vivid and lasting record of this revolutionary sport. Designed in collaborations with Envy, a queers designer with deep ties to the derby world, the books is as much an art object as it is a documentary. With a forwards by science journalist and former skater Aylin Woodward, Jamnesia offers readers an intimate window into one of the most gender-diverse and community driven sports in the world.
About the Sport
Modern roller derby is a full contact sport played on quad skates, blending fierce athleticism with strategy endurance, and teamwork. But beyond the track, it has evolved into a vibrant, gender-diverse subculture rooted in DIY values, queer liberations, and radical community care. Reimagined in the early 2000s by women and non-binary skaters in Austin Texas, contemporary derby resists commercial sports norms, most leagues are grassroots, volunteer-run and self-funded. Derby is more than a game; it’s a form of resistance, a chosen family and a space where marginalized people reclaim their power, speed, and voice.
Nitrate Fox is the artist identity of Brittany Bradley, and alternative process photographer based in the Bay Area. Specializing in wet plate collodion, her work explores themes of memory, resilience, and the unseen labor of marginalized communities. With a background in documentary practice and historical techniques, Britt creates images that feel both archival and immediate- capturing the spirit of resistance embedded in overlooked subculture. Her approach. Her approach is fiercely hands on: mixing chemistry, building mobile darkrooms, and photographing entirely on location. Jamnesia is her first monograph, and culmination of years spent inside the derby world as both documentarian and collaborator.
