Emmaline Zanelli

Emmaline (b.1994) is a lens-based artist who uses combinations of video, photography, sculpture and performance. Influenced by aesthetics of absurdity and surrealism, she creates work that finds humour and meaning in the everyday. In recent years, her work has explored themes related to fabrication, memory, and labour.

From 2016 - 2023, Emmaline was a co-director of The Bait Fridge, a multi-arts collective based in Tarndanya delivering musical and visual performances across a wide variety of venues from a shopping mall to a public pool. The collective has a central focus on open-format youth workshop experiences, and has worked with young people in Tarndanya as well as regional and remote communities interstate to make process-based art including disco parties, temporary fountains and cubby building. This practice increasingly influences Emmaline's personal practice, fostering an interest in youth cultures.

Emmaline completed a BVA at ACARTS in 2015, and a MA in Photography at PSC in Naarm/Melbourne in 2021. Her work has been exhibited in galleries nationally including Stills Gallery (NSW), Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (WA), The Centre for Contemporary Photography (VIC), and the Art Gallery of South Australia. Her work has been published in the British Journal of Photography and Suddeustche Zeitung magazine, and screened at Arles Photography Festival in France. In 2022 she was selected as the winner of The Churchie Emerging Art Prize and named as one of the recipients of the Adelaide Film Festiva X Samstagl EXPAND Lab Commission. In 2024, she was awarded a 12 month studio residency at Adelaide Contemporary Experimental.