Sophie Holden is the 2021 recipient of the Aesthetica / London College of Communication Next Generation Award 鈥 an initiative that celebrates rising stars in photography. Holden鈥檚 inspiration comes from sifting through archival materials and vintage magazines, aesthetics that are replicated through the grain of analogue film and hand-written annotations. It鈥檚 as if, as viewers we, too, are rifling through abandoned papers, or indeed, old diary entries, as we gaze over personal thoughts and coming-of-age ruminations. Holden鈥檚 works are at once deeply confessional and somehow anonymous, moving between locations like dots on a map. She writes: 鈥淚 look out across the city and I realise that there are thousands 鈥 millions 鈥 of lives I will never witness, never be a part of.鈥 Elsewhere, jotted alongside a sloping roof she notes: 鈥淩eality is slowly morphing into a film 鈥 but I am not the main character, even in my own head.鈥
Image Credits: Sophie Holden, Untitled from Eventide (2021).
