Jess Holdengarde
The Living Camera, Lyth Arts Centre (2025–26)
A collaborative, site-specific analogue project that brings together camera obscura, darkroom practice, moving image, and plant-based photographic chemistry. Developed through on-site making in Thurso, the project uses pinhole cameras and foraged plant materials to create large-scale photographic negatives, developed directly in the darkroom using chemistry gathered from the surrounding landscape. A 16mm film co-developed with Chloe Charlton is shot and hand-processed using plant-based chemistry made collectively with participants. The Living Camera evolves through collaboration, ecological processes, and slow, site-responsive image-making, with further developments continuing in 2025.
Credits
Camera design & build: Charles Engebretson and Jess Holdengarde
16mm film & hand-processing: Chloe Charlton
16mm cleaning & scanning: CineLab UK
Supported by Lyth Arts Centre, National Lottery Fund (Young Start), Hospitalfield, and Hope Scott Trust.
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Artist in Residence — University of Stirling (2025–26)
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I’m very pleased to share that I’ve been appointed Artist in Residence at the University of Stirling for the 2025–26 academic year. The residency takes place during the University’s Art & Science themed year and will involve working alongside researchers across disciplines, with a particular focus on research inspired by water. This feels closely aligned with my ongoing interests in ecological processes, material agency, and site-responsive analogue image-making. Over the year ahead, I’ll be developing new work through dialogue, experimentation, and collaboration, with further updates to follow as the residency unfolds.
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You can read more here: https://www.stir.ac.uk/news/2025/08/jess-holdengarde-is-university-of-stirlings-new--artist-in-residence/