Polaroid Kid — Mike Brodie ( 50 facsimile polaroids box set)

Polaroid Kid by Mike Brodie is a punk reliquary of 50 facsimile Polaroids, gathered and bound not in a traditional book but in a bespoke grey-board case, silkscreened and strapped tight with a heavy gauge rubber band — a design that channels the raw immediacy of zines and DIY punk ephemera. Known for his visceral, unschooled documentation of American freight-hopping youth, Brodie here trades the linear narrative of photobooks for something looser and more tactile: a box of images to be handled, shuffled, lived with. Though these are not original Polaroids, each print is a careful replica — offset and silkscreened to echo the look and intimacy of instant film, minus its fragility. Dirt-caked faces, tattooed limbs, train car graffiti, tender gazes — these aren’t staged portraits but the visual detritus of a life in motion. In a Darwin context, Polaroid Kid is less about nostalgia than about medium and attitude: the fusion of a defunct imaging technology with an aesthetic rooted in punk’s anti-institutional grit. The object asserts itself as both document and provocation, a hybrid form that honours the freedom and chaos it depicts.

Technical Sheet
Title: Polaroid Kid
Artist / Author: Mike Brodie
Technique / Printing Method: CMYK Offset and Silk Screened
Medium / Materials: 50 Polaroid facsimile prints in a silkscreened grey-board case, secured with heavy gauge rubber band
Dimensions: 130×170 mm
Pages: 50 (individual prints)
ISBN: 978‑1‑913288‑52‑5
Condition: NEW