The work of Emily Wardill occupies a distinctive space between cinema, literature, and visual art, exploring how narratives are constructed, destabilised, and re-imagined. Working primarily with film and installation, Wardill builds complex visual and sonic environments where characters, voices, and spaces unfold through layered and often fragmented storytelling. Rather than offering clear narrative resolution, her works create situations in which meaning remains fluid, shifting between psychological, historical, and fictional registers.

Wardill frequently draws upon sources as varied as psychoanalysis, philosophy, anthropology, and experimental cinema. Through these influences she develops works that examine the mechanisms through which stories are told and understood. Her films often appear initially familiar—echoing the language of classical cinema—yet they gradually unravel, revealing discontinuities between image, voice, and narrative structure. The viewer becomes acutely aware of the processes through which images produce meaning, memory, and identity.

Across her practice, Wardill treats narrative not as a stable framework but as something fragile and provisional. Characters slip between roles, voices detach from bodies, and temporal sequences fracture. This instability produces a subtle sense of disquiet, inviting viewers to question the authority of the image and the reliability of perception itself. In doing so, Wardill reveals storytelling as a site where cultural assumptions, psychological projections, and historical narratives intersect.

Wardill studied at Central Saint Martins before completing postgraduate studies at the Slade School of Fine Art. Her work has been presented internationally at major institutions including Tate Britain, Serpentine Gallery, Kunsthalle Zürich, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and New Museum. Through her films and installations, Wardill continues to examine how narrative forms shape the ways we interpret images, memory, and lived experience.

Work by Emily Wardill was included in an international moving image programme curated by Keith Whittle and Margherita Gramegna in collaboration with Film London.