Duration: 12min, Sustainably hand-processed collaborative 16mm film 

Collecting Light, Jess Holdengarde’s collaborative film made with Chloe Charlton in 2025. The Film documents the first workshops of The Living Camera project, which took place with Lyth Arts Centre’s youth community in 2025. Shot on 16mm film and centred around the theme of “Living” at Lyth Arts Centre, the film follows a collaborative analogue workshop built around a site-specific camera obscura that transforms into a darkroom and gathering space throughout the year.

Participants are seen constructing pinhole cameras, foraging local plants and inhabiting the obscura. The film documents how collective and regenerative image-making can support new ways of seeing, living, and learning - offering creative tools for the challenges of our time.

Collecting Light was developed with the same eco-chemistry that was collectively brewed during the workshop - embedding place, process, and shared making into its images. 

Collecting Light premiered in UK at Lyth Arts Centres’ Between Two Beaches Festival and Switzerland in 2026 -  presented with Screen Argyll at this year’s Sea Change Festival, aswell as a private screening at Hospitalfield. It was exhibited as part of Holdengarde’s duo exhibition with Verzasca Foto in Switzerland in August 2026. 

Credits

Film by: Chloe Charlton & Jess Holdengarde

DOP: Chloe Charlton

Camera Build: Charles Engelbreston

Technical and Travel Support: Jonathan Murray

Sustainable Development: Chloe Charlton and Jess Holdengarde

Project Leads: Jess Holdengarde and Helen Moore, at Lyth Arts Centre

Sound recordings: Jess Holdengarde, Euan McAlister, Eleanora Essiet

Sound Design: Robbie Thomson

Edit & Grade: Nat McGowan

Film Scanning : Cinelab U

Supported by Lyth Arts Centre, National Lottery Fund (Young Start), Hospitalfield, and Hope Scott Trust and Cinelab UK

* This film is available to view on Vimeo with a secure link, please get in touch if you would like to organise a viewing or screening