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)
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.
You can read more here: https://www.stir.ac.uk/news/2025/08/jess-holdengarde-is-university-of-stirlings-new--artist-in-residence/