Emma Jackson has an abiding interest in earth science. Her perspective on our unique continent began while working as a field assistant to Harry Butler in the Northwest of Australia while studying Science and Architecture at the University of Western Australia.

 

Jackson’s tertiary studies allowed for further exploration of this field of interest; after graduating in 1995 with a Bachelor of Architecture (Hons.), Jackson went on to complete a PhD, which foregrounds the geological history of Australia and examines the way we chose to build on it. The PhD challenges contemporary thinking around human occupation; ownership; urban design and planning policies; title; history and time; the coast and the inland; the centre and isolation.

 

With this academic research as backdrop, and crossing the disciplines of art, design and architecture, Jackson’s multi-media practice creates hand knotted wool and silk rugs, bespoke re-purposed furniture, and intricate works on paper, all of which reveal Australia’s complex rock formations, and more broadly, 4.6 billion years of our earth’s behaviour.

 

Jackson’s unique practice has been duly recognized; in 2021 she was awarded the Australian Tapestry Design Prize for Architects for “Time Shouts”; and in 2023 she was selected by the NGV as one of five designers to exhibit their work as part of FOCUS at the Melbourne Design Fair 2023.

 

Jackson has worked for noted Australian architectural firms Lyons; Wardle; arm architecture and Kerry Hill Architects, and until recently, has been an academic at RMIT School of Architecture and Urban Design.

 

Excerpts of her 2019 PhD at RMIT have been published internationally and were exhibited at the Venice Architectural Biennale in 2021.