Emma Hirsk
As an international and inter-disciplinary visual artist from Northern Ireland, based in Sweden, Emma's work repositions sculpture as socio-spatial practice, incorporating encounter, performativity, publicness, photography, materiality and ecology to inform the fundamental relationship we share with our human bodies. By weaving together threads of micro/macro-histories, intersectional cartographies and performative choreographies, installation works posit an augmented and embodied connotation of being female in the world, to activate a dialogue around the gender, agency and autonomy of public, private and contested space.
Emma has exhibited across the USA, UK and Europe, gaining her undergraduate degree in Jewellery and Metalwork at Dundee University in 1998, and honing her sculptural expertise at Fine Art Foundries in both Ireland and the USA. After participating in residencies with the Ulster University in 2001, and the Johnson Atelier, USA in 2003, Emma gained her M.A. Fine Art in 2004 from Northumbria University. With an increasingly socially-engaged practice, Emma earned a postgraduate degree in Art Education from Liverpool John Moores, in 2007, whilst continuing to exhibit internationally, including in 2016 with The Procreate Project in London and New York, then gaining a funding award in 2017 from Arts Council of Northern Ireland for Dendritic Systems, a sculptural mapping project.
In collaboration with Visual Arts Ireland, 2019, Emma was commissioned to create 'Unknown (Memorial to All Childhoods)', with a secondary exhibition, 'Performance Interlocutor', reflecting on the correlations between histories of female labour, production and procreation. With the Body as a site for knowledge production, new works presuppose an expansive definition of space to include the imaginary/public spheres in which the body breathes, exists and moves, as in Assault Protection series, 2020, through which Emma poses the binary of Visible/Invisible Identities to address systemic violence against women.
As an affiliated member of CFF (Centrum for Fotografi) in Stockholm, Emma continues to combine her multifaceted role of Artist, Educator, Mother and Photographer.
Emma has exhibited across the USA, UK and Europe, gaining her undergraduate degree in Jewellery and Metalwork at Dundee University in 1998, and honing her sculptural expertise at Fine Art Foundries in both Ireland and the USA. After participating in residencies with the Ulster University in 2001, and the Johnson Atelier, USA in 2003, Emma gained her M.A. Fine Art in 2004 from Northumbria University. With an increasingly socially-engaged practice, Emma earned a postgraduate degree in Art Education from Liverpool John Moores, in 2007, whilst continuing to exhibit internationally, including in 2016 with The Procreate Project in London and New York, then gaining a funding award in 2017 from Arts Council of Northern Ireland for Dendritic Systems, a sculptural mapping project.
In collaboration with Visual Arts Ireland, 2019, Emma was commissioned to create 'Unknown (Memorial to All Childhoods)', with a secondary exhibition, 'Performance Interlocutor', reflecting on the correlations between histories of female labour, production and procreation. With the Body as a site for knowledge production, new works presuppose an expansive definition of space to include the imaginary/public spheres in which the body breathes, exists and moves, as in Assault Protection series, 2020, through which Emma poses the binary of Visible/Invisible Identities to address systemic violence against women.
As an affiliated member of CFF (Centrum for Fotografi) in Stockholm, Emma continues to combine her multifaceted role of Artist, Educator, Mother and Photographer.
2020 - 2022