Emma Charles (London, 1985) is an artist working in film, photography and sound. She studied Photography at the Royal College of Art in London and is currently studying at the National Film and Television School.

Playing with the blurred lines between documentary and fiction, her work often explores different forms of invisibilities, and Charles is often drawn to subjects which are concealed, hidden or out of reach, whether that be the physical space of invisible technologies or more ethereal notions of the unseen. Her practice has developed in recent years to explore the different ways technology and geology intersect. Exploring the realm of rare earth minerals, media archeology and deep time, with a particular focus on nuclear cultures.

She has produced numerous moving image works which have achieved success at international film festivals, art biennials and exhibitions including Serpentine Galleries, Institute of Contemporary Arts, HKW and Jeu de Paume, Sheffield DocFest and Visions du Réel. She has been commissioned by Tyneside Cinema as well as ZKM Karlsruhe to produce 16mm work ‘White Mountain’ for the exhibition Reset Modernity!, curated by Bruno Latour. In 2017 she was nominated for the ‘New Talent Award’ at Sheffield Doc Fest for this work. In 2020 she completed her first feature length film which was selected to screen at MoMA, New York, Visions Du Réel, Dharamshala International Film Festival and 74th Edinburgh International Film Festival. In 2022 Charles was invited by Centre Pompidou in Paris to present an evening of her film works spanning the past ten years.

Charles’ films are held in two museum collections at Guangdong Museum of Art in China and The ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe in Germany. 

Contact

emmavictoriacharles [at] gmail [dot] com