Emily Richardson is a filmmaker and researcher examining the trace of human presence on particular landscapes and environments on the cusp of change.
Richardson’s films document sites of power and corporate interest at particular moments in time uncovering layers of narrative embedded in these contested landscapes, whether East London prior to the Olympics, abandoned military architecture of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment of Orford Ness, the oil industry on the Scottish coastline, the contentious expansion of Sizewell nuclear power station, or the exploitation of the Far North.
Richardson’s work sits within a lineage of filmmakers addressing ideas about our relationship to and impact on natural and constructed landscapes and environments through a reflexive observational approach to making work using a cross-disciplinary methodology that includes walking, photography, filmmaking, sound recording, historical and archive research, interviews, books and podcasts.
Richardson has also made several films in collaboration with clothes designer Margaret Howell, the first marking fifty years of her design practice. MH50 – 50 Years of Design which was shown in the UK, Europe and Japan during 2020/21 and was followed by Affinities, The Making of Shirt and most recently A Working Space, 34 Wigmore St.
She is a Film and Fine Art lecturer with a passion for experimental film and artists’ moving image. She curates a monthly artists' film night, Art Station Film at The Art Station, a community focused arts organisation housed in a 1950s post office building in Saxmundham, Suffolk. The monthly film screening event shows a diverse range of artists’ film and documentary both historic and contemporary. The programme has developed over the past two years from showing early avant garde cinema to contemporary artist’s moving image work, occasionally inviting guest filmmakers.
Richardson's films have been shown in galleries, museums and festivals internationally including Tate Modern and Tate Britain, London, Pompidou Centre, Paris, Barbican Cinema, London; Anthology Film Archives, New York and Venice, Edinburgh, BFI London, Rotterdam and New York Film Festivals.
Her work is distributed by Lux, London, Lightcone, Paris, Video Data Bank, Chicago and Canyon Cinema, San Francisco.
Selected Exhibitions, Screenings & Publications
Screenings & Exhibtions
2024
Open City Documentary Festival, London
Alternative Arts, Women's History Month, ACME studios, London
Les Amis du Cinema du Reel, Paris
Signes del Notte Film festival, Italy ( Awarded Film Night Award for Immaterial Terrain)
London Short Film Festival, Journey to the Earth: Documentary Programme, Curzon Soho, London
Just Coping 25, VFD Gallery, London
2023
Eco cinema Conference, Marseilles
Slow Film Festival, London
Le Troisieme Souffle, Strasbourg
EVEN Sian Croose, Jem Finer and Emily Richardson, The Undercroft, Norwich
Immaterial Terrain, Britten Pears Arts, Suffolk
2022
A House is a Work of Art, Architecture as seen by artists, Videodrome 2 In partnership with the Cinémathèque du Documentaire and ENSA, Marseille
Festival of New, Britten Pears Arts, Suffolk
Jerusalem Film Festival 2022
Making the House Work: Stories of the Domestic Interior associated with Radical Rooms: Power of the Plan, RIBA, London
40 Years of Lightcone, Paris
Resene Architecture and Design Film Festival, New Zealand
Experimental Film East Anglia, Norwich
The Lumiere Collective, Quebec
2021
MKIF, Arboreal for Orchestra for the Earth performance of Elgar's Cello Concerto, Milton Keynes International Festival
Affinities, for Margaret Howell, Daikanyama, Tokyo and ROHM Theatre, Kyoto
Art Station Film. A monthly programme of artists’ film and moving image, The Art Station, Suffolk
HERE, The Art Station, Suffolk
The Waiting Place, Online exhibition crated by Anne Marie James
Out of Place, Rethinking Camera Landscape Relationships, Blickle Kino, Vienna
2020
Of & By: Emily Richardson, Assembly Online
House Works, Whitechapel Gallery Film Programme, London
MH50 – 50 Years of Design, Margaret Howell, Wigmore St, London
2019
Murmuration 2019, Glenshee, Scotland with Chris Watson and Jez Riley-French
Another Land, Kingston Museum, London
Rotterdam International Film Festival
Artisterium, Tiblisi, Georgia
The Annotated Reader, Cork St, London and Fruitmarket, Edinburgh
Winnipeg Architecture and Design Festival, Canada
2018
Focal Point Gallery, Big Screen Southend, Southend-on-Sea, Essex
Fields of Communication: Nature, Culture, Technology. Research symposium, Royal College of Art
Cinema Parenthèse, Brussels
Open City Docs, London. Film in Place in partnership with UCL UrbanLab
National Portrait Gallery, London. Three States of Cinema: Still Life, Landscape and Portrait screening curated by Mark Toscano in conjunction with Lux to accompany Tacita Dean exhibition
Video Days, Bonington Gallery, Nottingham
ICA, London. Screening with No News Today: Ayo Akingbade
Landscape and Light, Letheringham Lodge, Suffolk
Tate St Ives. Winter Festival film screening
2017
A Green and Pleasant Land, British Landscape and the Imagination: 1970’s to Now, Towner Gallery, Eastbourne
Scratch Projection, Light Cone, Paris
PERIPHERY, EDGE/Open City Docs, UCL, London
Open House at Beach House, screening of Beach House with exhibition by Margaret Howell and in conversation with Tony Chambers, editor of Wallpaper magazine
Uncanny Loop, Glasgow Film Theatre
Offshore, Artists Explore the Sea, Ferens Art Gallery and Hull Maritime Museum, Hull
Ecology of Place, Melbourne, Australia
RoomArtSpace, London
London Architecture Film Festival
Videostrolls, Alchemy Film Festival, Hawick, Scotland
Ideas of Disorder, 3 Church Walk, screening and book launch, Lux, London and Aldeburgh Lookout, Suffolk
2016
Co-Op Dialogues 1966-2016, Chris Welsby and Emily Richardson, Tate Britain, London
Communicating the Intangible, Royal College of Art, London
Petrocultures 2016, Offshore II, The Rooms Art Gallery, Archives and Museum, Newfoundland
Oblique, International Video Art and Experimental Cinema Exhibition, Lisbon
Fade Away and Radiate, Saison Video, France
Contact, Festival of New Experimental Film and Video, London
Tableaux, Assembly Point, Peckham, London
Screenscapes, Royal College of Art, London
2015
FICXLAB at Gijon International Film Festival, Spain
In Place of Architecture, Exhibition and Symposium, Bonnington Gallery, Nottingham
2 Willow Rd, London
Neuflize OBC Video Night, Palais de Tokyo, Paris
Town and Country: 5 English Panoramas, Oslo Cinemateket, Oslo
Screening and conversation with Chris Watson, Northern Film and Media, Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle
Scene One: Off-Stage, Off- Screen, Flat Time House offsite at Peckham Plex, London
Articulating the Modern, Royal College of Art, London
2014
Essex Rd, Eight commissioned films, Tintype, London
Capital: Framing London, Now Cinema, London
View, Generator Projects, Dundee
Experimenta, BFI London Film Festival, London
Modernism Now! conference, UCL, London
American Sublime, Le Bal, Paris
Scratch Projection, Lightcone, Paris
The Improbable Made Possible: Farewell From a Dying Star, Anthology Archives, New York
Assembly: A Survey of Recent Artists’ Film and Video in Britain 2008-2013, Tate Britain, London
Night Has Many Eyes, Cinema du Reel, Pompidou Centre, Paris
Petrolia at The Museum of Gotland, Sweden
2013
Urban Wandering – Film and the London Landscape, Barbican Cinema
Difference Screen tour 2013 – 2015 including Whitechapel Gallery, London (Cobra Mist)
Duke’s Wood Fossil Culture at Nottingham Contemporary (Petrolia)
Dalston House Screenings: London Artist’s Films (Block)
London Seizure, Bermondsey Project and Arbeit (Block, Memo Mori)
SNAP Art at the Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings and Aldeburgh Lookout Tower (Rising 5th)
Hackney Picturehouse, Bodies without Organs (Block)
BFI, London, Environmental Agency: A Landscape Film Programme (Aspect)
Black Maria, CSM, London, Material Light (Nocturne)
CAST (Contemporary Art Space), Tasmania, 971 Zebras and 4 Horses (Cobra Mist)
Experimental Film Club, Irish Film Institute, Ruins and Entropy Part 2
Lux online exhibition, Place (Over the Horizon)
Furtherfield Gallery, London (One Minute Vol 6)
Docucity Documentary Film Festival, Milan (Memo Mori)
2012
Tate Modern, London, 971 Zebras and 4 Horses (Cobra Mist)
Tulca Festival of Visual Art, Ireland (Over the Horizon)
Wimbledon Space, London 971 Zebras and 4 Horses (Cobra Mist)
Chisenhale Gallery, London. Screening by Benedict Drew (Memo Mori)
Sugarhouse Studios, London. Hoopla (Memo Mori)
RCA at Hackney Picturehouse, London (Memo Mori, The Futurist)
Firstsite, Colchester, Playing with Space (Block)
SNAP, Art at the Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings, Suffolk (Over the Horizon, Rex)
Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris (Aspect)
Botkyrka Konsthall, Sweden. The Machine and Human Movement (Redshift)
2011
The Wapping Project, London. Undiscovered Landscapes (Memo Mori, Petrolia)
Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank. Futurology, Iain Sinclair, screening Memo Mori, readings Ghost Milk
The Golden Machine, A barge tour of the Olympic Park with Iain Sinclair and film, Memo Mori by Emily Richardson.
Floating Cinema: Hereabouts; Now and Then, Old Ford Locks, Dace Rd, Hackney Wick. E3 2NN (Memo Mori)
The Transit Cinema, Hackney Wick and Fish Island (Memo Mori)
Parc de la Villette, Paris (Nocturne)
HMVCurzon, Wimbledon. Moving Image South: Emily Richardson (selection of films)
Artprojx Cinema at The Armory Show / VoltaNY, New York (Petrolia)
Die Nacht, La Nuit 107, Arte TV, France (selection of films)
FACT, Liverpool (The Cinema Series)
Gothenburg International Film Festival, Sweden (Nocturne)
2010
The Echo of Light, Seine-Maritime, Rouen, France (Aspect)
La Caixa, Barcelona (Memo Mori, Cobra Mist)
Lands End, Shedhalle, Zurich (Petrolia)
The Lightbox Gallery, Woking (Cobra Mist)
London Film Festival. (The Futurist)
Venice Film Festival, Orizzonti selection (The Futurist)
Peninsula Arts, Plymouth (selection of films)
New British Film Festival, Moscow (The Futurist)
Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (Redshift)
The Magic Lantern, Glasgow (Memo Mori)
Impressions Gallery, Bradford (Memo Mori , Aspect)
Market Gallery, Glasgow (Nocturne)
ArchNoise, Christ Church, Spitalfields, London (Block)
Cinema du Reel, Pompidou Centre, Paris (Memo Mori)
La Casa Encendida, Madrid (Cobra Mist)
Jerwood Space, London (Aspect, Cobra Mist)
An English Journey, Re-imagined, Snape Maltings, Suffolk (Cobra Mist)
2009
Animation Breakdown, Tate Modern (Nocturne, Cobra Mist)
Hackney, That Red Rose Empire. Danielle Arnaud, London (Memo Mori)
Britspotting, Berlin (Cobra Mist)
DocumentART, Germany/ Poland (Cobra Mist)
Electric Cinema, Hastings (Cobra Mist)
InVideo, Milan (Cobra Mist)
Experimental Film and Video Festival, Seoul (Cobra Mist)
Melbourne International Film Festival (Cobra Mist)
Axonobuild, Site Gallery, Sheffield (Block)
Hackney, That Red Rose Empire, British Library, London (Memo mori)
DocumentART, Germany (Cobra Mist)
Mad Cat Film Festival, San Francisco (Cobra Mist)
Melbourne International Film Festival (Cobra Mist)
East End Film Festival, Rio Cinema, London (Block, Transit, Memo mori)
Coutisane Festival, Gent (Cobra Mist)
Evolution, Leeds (Cobra Mist)
Ann Arbour Film Festival, USA (Cobra Mist)
Rotterdam Film Festival, Netherlands (Cobra Mist)
Clermont Ferrand Festival, France (Cobra Mist)
2008
Figuring Landscapes, touring exhibition curated by Catherine Elwes and Steven Ball. (Petrolia)
Tate Modern, London Animate Projects (Cobra Mist)
Curzon Soho, London. Vertigo launch curated by Gareth Evans (Cobra Mist)
Café Oto, London. DVD launch with live performances by Chris Watson and Benedict Drew (Cobra Mist)
Encounters, Bristol (Cobra Mist)
FACT, Liverpool. Animate Projects (Cobra Mist)
Aurora Festival, Norwich (Cobra Mist)
Silo, Institut National d’Histoire de l’art, Paris (Aspect)
La Casa Encendida, Madrid (Block)
Edinburgh Filmhouse. (Aspect)
Arnolfini, Bristol. Night, A Time Between (Nocturne)
NGBK, Berlin. Nature on Film, curated by Maxa Zoller (Redshift)
Unit 5, Aurora, Norwich. (Cobra Mist)
2007
Landschaft, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart. (Aspect)
Constructions of Nature, Uppsala Museum, Sweden. (Redshift)
Our Space, OVADA, Oxford. (Redshift, Nocturne, Aspect, Block, Petrolia)
‘Theatrum Mundi: performance architecture’, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland. (Petrolia)
NFT, BFI, London. The Nature of Our Looking, curated by Mark Webber (Redshift)
Curzon Soho, London. Night Haunts, Sukhdev Sandhu (Nocturne)
Renoir, London. Ah, Butterfly, curated by Gareth Evans with Iain Sinclair (Transit)
Disappearing London, The Butterfly House, London (Nocturne)
2006
Transit, West Smithfield, London, curated by Measure. (Transit)
Screenland, Whitstable Museum, Kent. (Petrolia)
New York Film Festival (Block)
Cine Lumiere, London Interval, curated by Steven Eastwood (Block)
Rotterdam International Film Festival (Block)
2005
REAP, Cafe Gallery Projects, London. curated by Anne Bean. (Block)
Les Merveilles du Monde, Dunkerque Museum of Fine Arts, curated by Peter Fillingham
6000 miles, The Lighthouse Museum, Glasgow. (Petrolia)
London Film Festival Tour, Experimenta. UK tour including ICA, London, FACT, Liverpool,
Arnolfini, Bristol, Side Cinema, Newcastle and Edinburgh Filmhouse. (Aspect)
Sonar, Experimental music and film, Barcelona, Spain (Aspect)
European Media Art Featival, Osnabruck, Germany (Aspect)
Ann Arbour Film Festival, USA. (honourable mention) (Aspect)
2004
Time Frames book launch, screening of Aspect , Whitechapel Art Gallery, London.
View Points, Film Museum, Vienna, curated by Andrea Pollach. (Aspect)
Open-air screening in Kings Wood, Stour Valley Arts, Kent. (Aspect)
London Film Festival, National Film Theatre, London (Aspect)
New York Film Festival, Walter Reade Theatre, New York (Aspect)
2003
A Century of Artists Film in Britain, Tate Britain, London, curated by David Curtis. (Redshift)
Sprite Musketeer mobile gallery, Manchester. (Nocturne, Redshift)
Publications / articles
Oral History Journal, Spring 20224
Tangible Territory Journal, 2023
Landscape and the Moving Image, Catherine Elwes, 2022
40 years of Lightcone, 2022
Ideas of Disorder, 3 Church Walk by Cadbury-Brown, Jonathan P Watts and Emily Richardson, Occasional Papers, 2017
Dandelion Journal, Vol 7, No 1 (2016): Nostalgia
Accidental Archive, Issue **, March 2017
Moving Image Review & Art Journal, Volume 3 Number 1. 2015
C20 Society magazine, Issue 1. 2015
Invalid Format: An Anthology of Triple Canopy. 2012
Mutual Dependencies, Edited by Katherine Meynell, 2012
The City and the Moving Image, Urban Projections, Edited by Richard Koeck and Les Roberts
Towards (East) London 2012: Emily Richardson’s Transit (2006) and Memo Mori (2009), and the work of Iain Sinclair by Paul Newland. Published by Palgrave Macmillan, 2010
Figuring Landscapes, Devised by Catherine Elwes and Steven Ball. 2009
The Cultural Construction of London’s East End, Paul Newland, 2008
6000 Miles, Lighthouse Museum, Glasgow, 2005 Exhibition catalogue
Kings Wood, A Context, Stour Valley Arts 2005
Time Frames, Emily Richardson. Stour Valley Arts, 2004
Observer, Sunday 5 Apr 2009. Cold War Kid
Time Out Feb 24 – Mar 4 2009, Emily Richardson Films, DVD review
Grafik, May 2009
Vertigo, Vol.4 No1 Autumn/Winter 2008
Dazed and Confused, Sept 2008
Imprint
Privacy Policy
Designed by Studio Lorenz Klingebiel
Programmed by Kenn Hartwig, hartwig.dev
Emily Richardson © 2024