EMMA PAPWORTH
Welcome to Synergy™
A_0125 Towards a New Symbiosis
Hemispeheres
Rising to Float
Tablets I-VI
Modern Relics
Templates from Yesterday
At First we Built with Stone
Future Artefacts
Asphalt Desert
H-Block components
About
Contact
Emma Papworth is a London-based artist working across sculpture and installation, with a research-led practice concerned with ecological politics, technological infrastructures, and speculative futures. Her work employs world-building as a critical method, constructing immersive environments and fictional systems.
Papworth completed an MFA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2025. Her Masters research and dissertation were rooted in the concept of the Symbiocene, an epoch beyond the Anthropocene that prioritises interdependence, mutualism, and co-evolution between human, technological, and ecological systems. This research informed her MFA degree show project, Synergy, a fictional eco-corporation presented through a large-scale installation that adopted the aesthetics of corporate optimisation, technological infrastructure, and speculative design examining the subtle tension between notions of progress, utopic aspiration and artifice.
Her work has been exhibited widely across the UK and Europe, including at the Goldsmiths MFA Degree Show, AKK Kunstplatform (Switzerland), Atelier Menore (France), Shtager Shch, APT Gallery, Crypt Gallery, Safe House 1 & 2, Spike Island, Schimmel Projects Art Centre, and Cypher Space, Berlin. Alongside her artistic practice, she has undertaken curatorial projects, which inform her sensitivity to exhibition-making, spatial framing, and institutional contexts.
Education:
2025 MFA Fine Art, Goldsmiths, University of London
BFA Fine Art, Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University
Foundation Wiltshire College
Exhibitions:
2025 Cheap Street, Hypha Studio, London, UK
2025 Metropolis, Greatorex Street, London, UK
2025 MFA Degree Show, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK
2025 ARCHITECTUR, AKK Kunstplatform, CH
2025 Sitnalta. The Handbag Factory, London UK
2025 BUILD/FOUND,MAKE. CONCEAL/HIDE/KEEP SAFE, Hypha, London, UK
2024 Mirages, Atelier Menore, Menoux, FR
2024 Summer Show, Shtager Shch, London, UK
2024 Dawn is Now Once Again, Greenfield Project Space, London, UK
2024 Le Petit Mort, APT Gallery, London, UK
2023 Concrete Whispers, Brutal Dreams, Shtager Shch, London, UK
2023 Hemispheres, Alice Black Gallery, London, UK
2023 Rising to Float, Greatorex Street, London, UK
2023 Subterranean Organ, Crypt Gallery, London, UK
2023 Galerie GRÖLLE Passprojects, Wuppertal, DE
2023 Taste the Difference, Loess Collective, London,
2022 Ancient Vessels, APT Gallery, London, UK
2022 Present Tense, Goldsmiths MFA, London, UK
2022 Dovetail, Martello Street, London, UK
2022 At the Edge of the Safehouse, Safe House 1&2, London, UK
2022 Winter Sculpture Park, Gallery 32, UK
2022 Modern Relics, FOLD, London, UK
2021 ON HOLD, Goldsmiths, London, UK
2021 RELIC, APT Gallery, London, UK
2021 VERTICAL MERGER, Uncovered Collective, London, UK
2020 One Can Play More than One, Norrbyskär Konsthall, SE
2020 ATOMIC, Schimmel Projects Art Centre, Brixen, IT
2020 SPAZI VUOTI, Bow Arts, Ice House Courts, London UK
2019 Bare Lines, Safe House 1, London, UK
2019 And Proceed To Fill The Next Fold, The Future, Galleri 21, Malmö, SE
2018 Some Places Exist Only Once, Schimmel Projects Art Centre, Dresden, DE
2018 When You Travel in Time, Leave Nothing Behind, Lewisham Art House, London, UK
2018 H-Block Components, The Art House, Wakefield, UK
2018 RUNG, Spike Island, Bristol, UK
2017 Footsteps on the Roof, with Vince Deng, Cypher Space, Berlin, DE
2017 About the Undone, Academy of Fine Arts, Leipzig, DE
2017 CYPHER 0.3, Cypher Space, Berlin, DE
Residencies / Funding:
2025 The Eaton Fund
2025 The Gane Trust
2025 Professional Aid Guild
2024 Residency, Atelier Menore, Menoux, FR
Curated Exhibitions:
2025 BUILD/FOUND,MAKE. CONCEAL/HIDE/KEEP SAFE, Hypha, London, UK
2024 Dawn is Now Once Again, with Yasmine Vardi and Louise Oates, Greenfield Project Space, London
2022 Ancient Vessels, co-curated with Noelle Turner, APT Gallery, London
2022 Modern Relics, Fold Gallery, London
2021 A Space to Hold the Gaze, LILIYA, London
2021 A Call Across Rooms, LILIYA, London
studio@emmapapworth.com