Joanna Byrne West Yorkshire, United Kingdom

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Byrne is a Leeds/Bradford-based artist filmmaker and writer who takes material, performative, collaborative and sustainable approaches to creating moving image. She works with analogue film in a tactile way - incorporating found footage, hand-manipulation and physical traces of her body into her work. She has a socially-engaged practice and collaboration with others is important.

I am a Leeds/ Bradford-based artist filmmaker and writer who takes material, performative, sustainable and collaborative approaches to creating images on film. I work with analogue film in a tactile way - incorporating found footage, hand-manipulation and physical traces of my body into the work, and perform with live projections and sound to create immersive expanded cinema experiences.

I have a socially-engaged practice and collaboration with others is important. I'm interested in how experimental, participatory film practices can be therapeutic and transformational: connecting us as individuals to each other, to communities, shared histories and stories, the wider world and Planet Earth. I am currently developing new sustainable processes for analogue filmmaking within my practice.

My independent and collaborative films/performances have been presented at screenings, festivals and group exhibitions including: The Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC), National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh Art Festival, Chisenhale Gallery, Lo and Behold, Jerwood Gallery, Leeds International Film Festival, Whitstable Biennale, FACT, Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, Exploding Cinema, The Arnolfini, Sheffield DocFest.

I write about art and cinema and am especially interested in experimental film practices, photo-collage and artist's texts. I regularly publish in the online art journals a-n and Corridor 8, and I have had artist’s texts, films and stills published in Millennium Film Journal (US), Found Footage Magazine (Spain) and SoAnyway (UK). My experimental text on the cult sci-fi film Spectres of the Spectrum (1999) will be featured in the forthcoming book ‘Craig Baldwin: Avant to Live!’ This retrospective, a collaboration between Incite!: A Journal of Experimental Media and San Francisco Cinematheque will be published later in 2023.

I have 15 years’ experience as an art educator, teaching creative filmmaking and writing in both formal and informal learning contexts: high profile galleries and museums, educational institutions, film/arts festivals, artist run spaces/studios and community settings. Partners have included: The Whitney Museum of American Art, Tate Britain, BFI Southbank, The Chisenhale Gallery, CCA, HOME, FACT, Abandon Normal Devices, Turner Contemporary Margate, Royal College of Art, The Whitworth Gallery, Sheffield DocFest, Leeds International Film Festival, Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, Flatpack Festival, IKON, MAC, National Media Museum, Bedford Creative Arts, Leeds Lit Fest/Pavilion and the Hyde Park Picture House, the East Leeds Project/NHS.