Against Forgetting, Dee Holt. Scott Creative Arts Foundation Finalist 2026
https://www.scafemergingartist.co.uk/
Photography, for me, extends beyond the production of an image. My practice considers how place can be experienced, recorded and embedded within the artwork itself through analogue photographic processes, archival material and collected objects. Working predominantly with an instant analogue pinhole camera, I investigate the relationship between landscape, memory and environmental change, often incorporating materials gathered from the locations I photograph so that the work carries a physical connection to its origin.
My research is informed by environmental concerns and by an interest in how photography can encourage reflection on our relationship with place. This extends into my doctoral research, which explores public engagement with environmental awareness through the arts. As an autistic artist, I recognise that my way of observing and processing the world influences the structure of my practice. I am drawn to patterns, systems of collecting and the accumulation of visual and material traces that allow places to be revisited and reinterpreted over time.
Against Forgetting was developed for the Scott Creative Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award 2026. The Heritage theme aligned naturally with my practice, not as an exercise in nostalgia, but as an exploration of how photographs, archives and everyday objects preserve fragments of collective memory. By combining original analogue photographs with historic postcards, maps and found ephemera from Scarborough, the work considers how contemporary experience and historical record become layered within the same landscape. Rather than presenting a fixed narrative, the work invites viewers to navigate these relationships for themselves, acknowledging memory as something that is continually assembled, questioned and renewed.
The work along with that of the other finalists, is on display from July 20th to September 19 2026 at the Danum Gallery, Library and Museum in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, UK.
