About

Joanna Byrne (she/her) is a Bradford-based artist filmmaker who takes material, performative, collaborative and sustainable approaches to creating moving image. She works with analogue film in a tactile way - incorporating alternative photographic processes, hand-manipulation and physical traces of her body into the work. She performs with live projections and sound to create immersive expanded cinema experiences.

Byrne is interested in the therapeutic and transformational potential of experimental, participatory film practices - connecting us to each other, to communities, shared stories and Planet Earth. In 2024 she gained a place on the Leeds Creative Labs x Bradford Producing Hub research programme, collaborating with Evgenia Ilyinskaya, Associate Professor at the Institute of Geophysics and Tectonics, University of Leeds. Their R&D explored the study of volcanic activity and effects on local populations, air pollution, local botany and the sharing of community knowledge through sustainable and alternative photographic processes. In 2023 she won third place in the Scott Creative Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award, and was awarded an A-N artist’s development bursary in 2022 to develop new processes in sustainable analogue 16mm filmmaking.

She writes about art and film, runs accessible filmmaking workshops for people from all walks of life, and teaches on BA Filmmaking at Leeds Arts University.

joanna.byrne (at) ymail.com

CURRENT:

Qualifications

2011: MPhil (practice-based research) in Artist’s Film, School of Contemporary Art and Graphic Design, Leeds Metropolitan University.

2002: BA (Hons) Graphic Fine Art, University of East London – 2:1.

SELECTED SCREENINGS AND EXHIBITIONS

2025

To remember... / 记得: The Martin Thomas Memorial Artwork, University of Leeds. Preview and premiere: 30.01.2025. Solo exhibition on permanent display.

Untitled (SE139159), Let Us See You, 8 January-23 February 2025, Sunny Bank Mills, Leeds [group exhibition].

SCAF Emerging Journeys, Northallerton [8mm & 16mm film: digitised, group exhibition].

2024

  • Diane (wrapped in plastic), screening at Analogica 14, Bolzano, Italy [8mm film: digitised, screening]..

  • tectum argenti - Gravitational Lensing, Shapeshifters Cinema, Oakland, CA [16mm film: digitised, screening].

  • tectum argenti and Blue Moon, in On Queerness and Ecology, London [16mm film, digitised: group exhibition].

  • Blue Moon - Repetition, PHOTO-CANOPY, July [16mm film: digitised, group exhibition]

  • Diane (wrapped in plastic), on tour with Light Matter Film Festival [super 8mm, digitised: screening] @ New York Filmmaker’s Coop, NYC | Kino Palais, Buenos Aires | Museo Nacional del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador | NoName Cinema, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

  • tectum argenti, New Year, New Work @ New York Filmmaker’s Coop, NYC [16mm film: digitised, screening].

  • tectum argenti - Illumination, Bristol Folk House Darkroom and Centrespace Gallery, Bristol, 18-24 April [group exhibition]

  • tectum argenti, @ Analogue Ensemble: Desaturated, Ramsgate (UK)

  • Blue Moon, Animating Hexham, 9-11 February [16mm film: digitised, group exhibition]

  • tectum argenti, Queer Beach, Brighton, 29 January-11 February [16mm film: digitised, group exhibition]

2023

2022

  • tectum argenti, The Art House Wakefield. Commissioned by Loose Screw Film Festival [16mm film: digitised, screening]

  • Meeting Halfway, SunUp @ UpCo, Otley. Collaboration with Lucy Bergman [super 8mm double channel film, screening]

2013

  • Screen Kiss Series on tour in the One Hundred Foot II artist film programme [16mm film: screening] @ MKGallery, Milton Keynes | Latitude Festival, UK | Jerwood Gallery, London | Lo & Behold Gallery, London | Whitstable Biennale, Whitstable | MKGallery, Milton Keynes | Latitude Festival, UK | The Star and Shadow, Newcastle

  • Manifestoh!, National Portrait Gallery, London - Film Movement in Light [super8mm: digitised, screening]

  • Screen Kiss, The Royal Standard, Liverpool - Misdirect Movies [16mm film performance, screening]

  • Screen Kiss, Film Material Soup #8, Rogue Studios, Manchester [16mm film performance, screening]

2012

  • Cleanse, Tone, Moisturise [Conceal], FACT, Liverpool - Cellul-oko [16mm film performance, screening]

  • Leeds 78, Project Space Leeds, Leeds - GLAMOURIE – M1 < Dark Heart. Collaboration with Mark Byrne [16mm film and 35mm slide projection performance, screening/group show]

  • Unravel, IKON Gallery, Birmingham [16mm: digitised, installation]

Commissions, Bursaries and Awards

2025

  • R & D + Commission: Selected artist for Practice: Bradford, a collaboration between Yorkshire Contemporary and Bradford Producing Hub, for Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture.

2024

  • Awarded: Horizons / Leeds Cultural Institute funding to deliver the interdisciplinary project ‘Reimagining Urban Wildernesses in Bradford’, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Leeds and the University of Bradford.

  • R & D Bursary: Leeds Creative Labs x Bradford Producing Hub. Photographic research collaboration with Evgenia Ilyinskaya, Associate Professor at the Institute of Geophysics and Tectonics, University of Leeds - exploring the study of volcanic activity and effects on local populations, air pollution, local botany and community knowledge through sustainable and alternative photographic processes.

2023

2022

  • Bursary: A-N Artist’s Professional Development Bursary to research and develop sustainable analogue filmmaking practices

  • Commission: (artist’s film) for Loose Screw Film Festival, supported by The Art House, Wakefield / ArtWalk Wakefield and Wakefield Council

2012

  • Commission: 16mm film installation for Flip Animation Festival, Wolverhampton

  • Commission: artist’s film for Wakefield Mystery Tour, The Art House, Wakefield [super 8mm, 16mm and 35mm slides: digitised, installation]

selected Publications / Features

2024

  • Early films and live analogue projections featured in the experimental music documentary on Vibracathedral Orchestra - Enormous Yes (2024) dir. Stewart Morgan Hajdukiewicz - now distributed by New York Filmmakers’ Coop.

2023

2022