These photos explore what it means to be present in 2026
In a new exhibition, ‘What Holds Us’, Apple enlists three artists to capture the people, places and rituals that connect and ground us
What Holds Us
In a time of distraction and chaos, what holds us? That was the question posed to the three artists featured in a new photography exhibition curated by Kathy Ryan, who, for the third consecutive year, has put together an exhibition spotlighting iPhone photography, which is on display in New York from September 18 to 20. “We’re living in a very fractured, difficult moment,” says Ryan, the former longtime director of photography for The New York Times Magazine. “There’s so much division, so much polarisation. And it was just the thought: what holds us? What holds us within ourselves? What holds us to each other?”
The result of that questioning was three bodies of work, captured by Alex Prager, Jack Davison and Jimmy Chin and shot exclusively on the iPhone 18 Pro, that all distinctly explore what connection looks like in the modern era. In Prager’s images, we witness the aftermath of a celebration. The stills show confetti scattered about, and the emotional effect is that of walking into a party after all the fun has already ended.
In Chin’s series, arresting photos of Canada’s Bugaboo Mountains show both the beauty and the danger of nature’s landscapes. Playing with scale, Chin, a mountain climber himself, captured wide, expansive shots that made the environment appear limitless, along with detailed close-ups that showed the intricate patterns of glaciers. Davison’s photos focused on human touch, using clay to explore tactility. Hands are a recurring theme throughout his series, taking the most literal interpretation of “What Holds Us”.
In curating the exhibition, Ryan was intentional about choosing artists who worked in different veins, but could all maximise the iPhone’s tools in ways that were unique to them. “I think [the photos] spark off each other and create a different kind of energy,” says the curator. “The sort of meditative quality of Jack’s with the exuberant quality of Alex’s and the lonely quality of Jimmy’s… With each of them, the emotional undercurrent is very different.”
Despite the different emotional undercurrents, the overarching theme of each work is presence, something that feels increasingly elusive in today’s age. What does it mean to be present at a party, when you’re surrounded by others but still feel alone? Or on a mountainside, where you have no choice but to be dialled in and focused? Technology is of course a major factor affecting our ability to be present, which is something Davison had in mind when developing his work for the series.
“I obviously was thinking a lot about tech, AI and the kind of digital creep of technology,” says the artist. Early creation myths, where men and women are made from clay, also served as inspiration for Davison’s photographs, where clay seeps into cracks and crevices of skin. “It was really a celebration of touch and human tactility…They’re quite sensual pictures, and I’m surprised I got away with what I did.”
In one of Davison’s most vivid portraits for the project, three figures interact with a mound of clay, each shifting and blurry. Their movement seems to imply the difficulty of the exhibition’s question – in asking what holds us, it becomes clear that nearly nothing can.
What Holds Us will travel to London and Shanghai in the coming months.
Originally published by dazeddigital.com. Syndicated material does not necessarily reflect the views of GQ British Lifestyle.
