Emma Bergman is an interdisciplinary artist and organizer. They make films, installations, performances, and archives, with a focus on relationship-based practices. Emma’s current projects use the structure of a para-institution, the Department of Eschatology, to investigate alternative family structures, group dynamics, and apocalyptic futures.
Emma believes in a future without prisons and attempts to further that vision in their work. Rocko, a film they directed with incarcerated artist James Jones, premiered at DOC NYC in 2023. In 2022, they co-curated Visitation, an exhibition featuring the work of system-impacted artists at All Street Gallery (NYC). Emma organizes with the Prison Solidarity Project, a word-of-mouth network that has connected more than 700 incarcerated people with pen pals.
In 2014, Emma co-founded the multimedia performance collective Call Your Mom. For 10 years, the collective made immersive works inviting audiences to connect interpersonal experiences to larger social dynamics. CYM facilitated workshops on collaboration, coalition building, and performance strategies hosted by the School of Making Thinking, Lumina Studio Theatre, the University of Michigan, and the University of Indiana. Their work was shown at Gylleboverket (Gärnäs, Sweden), Centro NAVE (Santiago, Chile), Cucalorus Film Festival (Wilmington, NC), the Janet & Walter Sondheim Art Prize Semifinalist Exhibition (Baltimore, MD), and more.
Emma holds a BFA in Interarts Performance from the University of Michigan. They received the Pritzker Graduate Fellowship to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where they are finishing their MFA. They were a Y10 Community Member at NEW INC, an incubator for art and technology affiliated with the New Museum.
emmasbergman95 [at] gmail [dot] com
Emma believes in a future without prisons and attempts to further that vision in their work. Rocko, a film they directed with incarcerated artist James Jones, premiered at DOC NYC in 2023. In 2022, they co-curated Visitation, an exhibition featuring the work of system-impacted artists at All Street Gallery (NYC). Emma organizes with the Prison Solidarity Project, a word-of-mouth network that has connected more than 700 incarcerated people with pen pals.
In 2014, Emma co-founded the multimedia performance collective Call Your Mom. For 10 years, the collective made immersive works inviting audiences to connect interpersonal experiences to larger social dynamics. CYM facilitated workshops on collaboration, coalition building, and performance strategies hosted by the School of Making Thinking, Lumina Studio Theatre, the University of Michigan, and the University of Indiana. Their work was shown at Gylleboverket (Gärnäs, Sweden), Centro NAVE (Santiago, Chile), Cucalorus Film Festival (Wilmington, NC), the Janet & Walter Sondheim Art Prize Semifinalist Exhibition (Baltimore, MD), and more.
Emma holds a BFA in Interarts Performance from the University of Michigan. They received the Pritzker Graduate Fellowship to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where they are finishing their MFA. They were a Y10 Community Member at NEW INC, an incubator for art and technology affiliated with the New Museum.
emmasbergman95 [at] gmail [dot] com