A film still from Emma Hart: Language and Class. On the left hand side is a profile view of the artist Emma Hart, a woman with short blonde hair, who is mid-speech. On the right-handside is a ceramic artwork that spells OI OI
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Emma Hart: Language and Class


13 Apr 2022

In a five-part series of films, we examine how rebellion sits at the heart of pioneering artistic practice. For our final film in the series, we explore language and class with artist Emma Hart.

Emma Hart predominantly works with ceramics to make sculptures, which include an ongoing series of large glazed speech bubbles.  Lately she has been using her ceramic speech bubbles to irreverently explore the pressures of being an artist that comes from a working class background, who as she puts it “operates in the middle class artworld.”

Hart states  ‘my class background is held in my mouth, and unfortunately each time I open it I risk being judged. Your mouth holds your upbringing, accidentally spitting out your history

Hart’s wall mounted speech bubbles physically confront us and viewed at head height, actively put words in our mouths. 

Credits

Featuring: Emma Hart
Director: Radford Nicholls
Editor: Jacek Zmarz
Director of Photography: Radford Nicholls
Executive Producer: Eleanor Scott
Additional Video: LFTL and Tom Sharman
Courtesy of Barakat Contemporary and The Sunday Painter
Additional photographs: Thierry Bal and Ollie Hammick