Beyond the Bounds by Holly Lynton

For more than fifteen years, Holly Lynton has explored the intersections of faith, history, labour and landscape across rural communities in the United States. Her ongoing project Beyond the Bounds (2019–present) examines places shaped by moments of spiritual awakening—from towns founded by psychics in Florida to healing springs in South Carolina. Once centres of ecstatic belief and religious revival, these sites are now often quiet communities where faith persists not through dramatic revelation, but in the rhythms of everyday life.

Through a slow, collaborative approach, Lynton traces the enduring role of faith in American culture, revealing how landscapes continue to bear the imprint of successive religious movements. Her photographs consider the communities that sought refuge to practise their beliefs, often in opposition to the societies they left behind. At a time when religion remains deeply woven into public life in the United States, Beyond the Bounds explores how histories of faith continue to shape the nation’s landscapes, communities and ways of life. 

Holly Lynton was the winner of the Bristol Photo Festival Open Call in 2024 in collaboration with Hapax Magazine.

Biography

Working across photography, writing and archival research, Holly Lynton documents contemporary rituals rooted in history, examining how cultural memory shapes the ways images are seen and understood. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; the Yale University Art Gallery; and the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, New Jersey. Her first monograph, Bare Handed, was published by L’Artiere Edizioni in 2022. Lynton has received numerous awards, including an Aaron Siskind Individual Photographer’s Fellowship, the Archive of Documentary Arts Collection Award at Duke University, and a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship. Her work is held in major public collections, including the Yale University Art Gallery, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art Watson Library, Tate Library, the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University, the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, and the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University. She lives and works in rural Massachusetts.

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