BAINA Bathe
Vol 39.
Holly Fielder

Holly is a photographer who grew up between Canada, Zambia, and Egypt before settling in the UK. This early sense of impermanence continues to shape her practice, using photography to document fleeting moments.

In this edition, Holly reflects on bathing as a way of returning home while in transience. Road tripping around the Mediterranean, her connection to water shifts from a shower looped around an olive tree one day, to bathing in a rocky alcove the next. She shares the small familiarities that ground her while visiting new landscapes and a cherished memory of bathing beneath palm fronds, accompanied by their soft rustle and birdsong.

"For me, bathing is an opportunity to escape for a while—a retreat into my own little world of rituals—and also a homecoming, a way of returning to myself. When I’m feeling unmoored, bathing often brings me back to a sense of home, out of my busy mind and back into my body. As someone who can lie in the bath for hours, reading, sipping coffee, and staring into space until my fingers wrinkle, it’s been strange spending the past two months travelling without immediate access to my own bathing space. As I prepare to move again at the end of this trip, and navigate finding a new home, I know I can lean on small, everyday moments—like bathing—to help me feel more anchored.

At home, I would usually shower early in the morning after some form of movement. Saving my long baths for quiet evenings and weekends. Both feel like a chance to settle into a new rhythm and mindset. Right now, it looks slightly different. My bath is a little rocky alcove in the Peloponnese one day, a travel shower looped to the branch of an olive tree the next. It feels so good to be in nature as much as possible and bathing feels even more restorative in the elements."

"I grew up moving every few years, a pattern that seems to be replicated recently in adulthood. It taught me that home isn’t static, it can be multiple places and it can be multiple things. A familiar scent, a favourite mug, a collection of stones or objects — you could be anywhere, but it feels like home.

I seek out solitude as often as I can. If I feel my thoughts are tangled, I often know I need space and time to sit with myself. Whether that’s a 5 minute shower, diving into the sea or a long bath — I always feel like something stagnant has shifted."

"Staying in a small guesthouse in Tangalle, Sri Lanka — there was a concrete bath-tub underneath woven palm fronds. The room was only partly covered so you could still see the trees above, which rustled from time to time with birds and monkeys. I had incense burning and a pot of black coffee beside me; the peace I felt has stayed with me for a long time."