Kaitlin Bryson and Nancy Dewhurst 

00:05:21. Digitized and physically manipulated 16mm analog film

[an interactive video projection intended to be viewed on/in the viewer's hand, held in front of a small projector]

To be held, to behold considers notions of longing, holding, and witnessing each other and the world we are all held within. The work emerged through the close friendship between the two artists, and their conversations, questions, and experiences throughout the past year.  

The footage was filmed on a Bolex Rex 16mm on a cold winter day in Santa Fe, NM. Bryson and Dewhurst were drawn to the tactile quality of analog film and to its limitations. The concept of the film is authentic to the demands of the analog process; it unfolds as it happens, it‘s not possible to see or immediately archive what was recorded, requiring acceptance of each take as both first and final draft. Like memory, it is only in hindsight, or postproduction, that meaning, or sense-making can be assembled.  

Viewing this artwork intimately projected onto your hand/body provides a moment for remembering that our bodies contain all we endure. Yet as the images move across the hand we are reminded of the ever-changing forms and transformations of what we hold onto.