Emma Godfrey Pigott
About the researcher
Emma Godfrey Pigott (b. 1979, UK) is a Swiss-based visual artist and writer. She holds a Master of Fine Arts at the University of South Wales and is now studying for a PhD with the University of Falmouth.
She was a finalist in the RPS International Photography Exhibition 2019 and was shortlisted for Belfast Photo 2024. Her work has been exhibited at FotoNostrom, Barcelona, RPS House, Bristol, Prospekto Gallery, Vilnius, the 2023 Bienal de Foto do Porto and the Noorderlicht 2025 Biennale. Her writing has been published on the RPS Hundred Heroines blog and in Photography & Culture.
The landscape is a key aspect in Emma’s practice: for her it becomes a character and stage upon which to explore the experience of being in the world. Her research focuses on liminality and New Materialism as a paradigm for understanding the changes that are happening in our world especially due to the climate crisis. Working across a range of lens-based media and alternative processes, she plays with photographic processes, allowing chance and generative strategies to influence the outcome as a way of listening to the world.
Research interests
- Agential Realism
- Alternative & Ecological Photographic Practice
- Art-Science Collaboration
- Climate Crisis
- Diffractive Methodologies
- Eco-Feminism
- Entanglement
- Geoengineering
- History of Photography
- More-than-human Agency
- New Materialism & Onto-Epistemology
- Perception
- Plant-based Photography
- Post-Anthropocentric Photography
- Visual Culture of Climate
PhD abstract
Thesis title
Diffractive visions of geoengineering: climate as entity and entanglement.
Abstract
My interdisciplinary, practice-based research is rooted in New Materialist theory. It explores photographic processes as encounters between more-than-human agents to investigate how framing photographic methodology as a "diffractive process" enables a reconceptualised relationship to climate.
I aim to challenge the historically binary perception of the natural world inherent in traditional climate photography through experimental work and art-science collaborations. In doing so I will redefine the photographic image as a record of intra-action, moving beyond fixed visual representation (Barad, 2007).
I define diffractive thinking as a material practice of “cutting together-apart” (Barad 2014: 168). Rather than just reflecting climate change, a diffractive vision acts as a physical intervention. It records the mutual interference between geoengineering experimentation and planetary materials like soil, plants, or light. By listening to these materials, I allow them to mark the work; the photograph is not just of the environment but physically co-created by it.
Seminal readings in my research field include Karen Barad’s discursive material onto-epistemology (Barad, 2007), Donna Haraway’s diffractive mode of thinking “naturecultures” and her insistence on “sympoiesis” or “making-with” (Haraway 2016). These ideas are extended by Jane Bennett (2010) and Joanna Zylinska (2017).
My methodology seeks to bring together different materials and entities to intra-act, with my role being that of facilitator.
- Agential Practices: I use photographic strategies where material elements—such as light, chemistry, and code—are allowed active agency in image formation.
- Material Engagement: I engage with the scientific apparatus, including open-source climate models and raw datasets.
- The Apparatus: Rather than analysing these artifacts, I incorporate them as material collaborators within a diffractive process.
- Technical Breadth: The practice integrates analogue, alternative, digital, and synthetic (AI) processes, recognising the machine-based realm as a vital part of the mattered world.
The final research will be synthesised into a critical thesis and an exhibition designed to encourage debate on geoengineering and climate entanglement.
Qualifications
| Year | Qualification | Awarding body |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | MA Documentary Photography (distinction) | University of South Wales |
Contributions
Publications:
- 2025 ‘The Last Snowball’ in WE ARE magazine, RPS, February 2025
- 2024 ‘The Last Snowball’ in Artdoc magazine, issue nr. 6
- ‘The Last Snowball’ in Alter Image zine
'#Ingrid'. Photography & Culture. At: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/T9U3FM6GUQK9Y8WPQXNT/full?target=10.1080/17514517.2024.2323897
2021-2022 Articles & reviews on Hundred Heroines, UK charity dedicated to advancing public awareness of women in photography.
Selected Exhibitions:
2025
- Machine Entanglements, Noorderlicht Biënnale, Groningen, The Netherlands
2024
- ReStart, Prospekto Gallery, Vilnius
2023
- Deslocamentos (Displacements), Bienal de Foto do Porto curated by Pablo Berástegui, Porto
2020
- Imagining an Island, Virtual exhibition and symposium
- Group exhibition 14th Julia Margaret Cameron Award, FotoNostrum, Barcelona