Emma Campbell: Art and Activism, Alliance for Choice, Array Collective and the Turner Prize
Irish Left Archive PodcastShow Notes
In this episode we talk to Emma Campbell. Emma is an artist, activist and researcher based in Belfast. She is a co-convenor of Alliance for Choice and has particularly focused both her activism and solo art work on abortion rights, with projects including When they put their hands out like scales, which included ‘Journeys’ – photographing people’s journeys to abortion clinics in England – and ‘Women on Waves’ – collages drawing on historical images and archive photos from the Women on Waves campaign. Emma is also part of the Array Collective, which won the Turner Prize in 2021 for The Druthaib’s Ball. Emma’s PhD research addresses photography as an activist tool for abortion rights, and she is a Research Associate in Social Studies at the University of Ulster.
We discuss Emma’s work and how it intertwines with her activism, and look at how the campaign for abortion provision in Northern Ireland has progressed, from the lead up to the 2019 adoption of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) recommendations, the repeal of criminal sanctions and introduction of legal abortion, and the current state of provision.
We also discuss how viewers respond to Emma’s work and how that has changed over time; her involvement in the Array Collective and the activist nature of the group; and the experience of being nominated and winning the Turner Prize in 2021.
You’ll find Emma’s website at emmacampbell.co.uk, where you can see some of the work discussed, and the Array Collective at arraystudiosbelfast.com. The Alliance 4 Choice website is at alliance4choice.com.
More from Irish Left Archive Podcast
In this episode we talk to John Fay about Newshound. John set up Newshound in 1996, after moving from the U.S.A. to Ireland, as a daily curated source of news on the North and the development of the peace process. It later became part of Irish-American news site, Irish Central, and ran daily until 2018.
In this episode we talk to Eugene McCartan. Originally from Co. Down, Eugene has been an activist with the Communist Party of Ireland since joining in Dublin in 1974. He served as the party’s Chairperson from 1989 to 2001 and then General Secretary until his retirement from that role in 2023.
In this episode we’re joined again by Charles Tuba for a discussion of Jack Holland and Henry McDonald’s book, INLA: Deadly Divisions, which tells the story of the origins and development of the INLA.
This episode is a round up of the Irish Left Archive project in 2025 and answers to some listener questions. Thanks as always to everyone who has supported and engaged with the archive by sending documents, speaking on the podcast, emailing, commenting, and using the site.
In this episode we talk to Madeleine Johansson of Red Network. Madeleine moved from Sweden to Ireland in the 2000s where she became active with the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP) and People Before Profit (PBP). She was a party organiser and director of elections for the 2016 General Election campaign in Dublin Mid-West, subsequently co-opted on to South Dublin County Council in 2016, and returned in the 2019 and 2024 local elections. Madeleine was a founding member of Red Network, which was formed in 2021 within People Before Profit before becoming an independent party in 2025. She is the author of Class War – Not Culture War (2025) and Reform or Revolution – Sweden, Socialism and The Welfare State (2022), available from the Red Network website.