Emma Edmondson
Emma Edmondson studied and graduated during the 2008 financial crash. Because of this you can often find her wondering, with a hopefulness, how austerity shapes creative survival. Alternative economies, precarity, optimism and utopian community are at the centre of her research and she makes public sculpture in many forms; from beer mats to brick walls to books to karaoke to brass signs to sculptural shelters.
Emma founded The Other MA (TOMA) in 2016, an accessible artist-run education model which is currently the only postgrad-ish level art programme in Essex after all others were stopped by their host universities. TOMA sits outside the traditional institutional model and was born of austerity and the decades long businessification of creative education. These are the politics that bought TOMA into existence and form the basis of the book How to set up an art school.
Emma is currently a PhD candidate at Northumbria University exploring DIY creative practices and artist-run organisational modelling under austerity (2008 - now-ish) titled: Working, singing, dancing and drinking together in the ruins: growing DIY speculative spaces for creative learning on the edgelands of austerity.
Events
Dreamspace: People’s Kiln
Artists and community groups come together to build and fire bricks made from Hadleigh clay. Gather around the kiln for a series of free evening events exploring art, architecture, landscape, folklore and making.
Dreamspace: Pending Approval
A Collective project to dream up a sculpture to become a versatile outdoor shelter for learning, making, resting and appreciating the estuary. Workshops will welcome a multitude of voices to inspire, shape and inform the final designs.
Clubbing and Commune-ing in Essex
Bringing the good times back to interrogate the once dominant nightclub culture of the Estuary, including a book launch, video installation, talk and nightclub reunion at the pub!