Scenography, installation and live art, creative-critical writing, site-writing, practice-as-research, heritage and place.
Emily Orley (PhD, PGCHE) is a London-based artist, researcher and educator, whose work includes performance, scenography, installation, video and hybrid modes of writing. She is interested in exploring ideas to do with memory, maintenance and enchantment, as well as the un-fixing of time, heritage and place. Always open to new forms of experimentation, she is endlessly inspired by lively discussions, new encounters, and unlikely assemblages. She is a firm believer in breaking down the false binaries that separate practice and theory, making and thinking and writing about making.
As well as working on the MA at Guildhall School, Orley supervises PhD students, and runs postgraduate workshops on practice-as-research methods and creative-critical writing. She is a founding member of Guildhall's Practice-as-Research network, and a co-convenor of the London-wide Out of Practice (Oops) collective, open to all artists, academics and writers interested in creative-critical practices.
Orley taught at Roehampton University for 17 years, where she was a Reader in Drama, Theatre and Performance before coming to Guildhall in January 2022. She has degrees from the Wimbledon School of Art and Cambridge and Roehampton Universities and trained at the Jacques Lecoq School in Paris.
Fabulating as Mothers: the curious story of the girl with a bird in her mouth. In Maternal Ecologies: Feminist Practices of Motherhood, Land, and Creativity
Orley, E., Hilevaara, K., Hawkes, J. (Ed.), Phillips, P. (Ed.), & Carson, J. (Ed.) (2026). Fabulating as Mothers: the curious story of the girl with a bird in her mouth. In Maternal Ecologies: Feminist Practices of Motherhood, Land, and Creativity. Demeter Press.
2026
View OutputFabulating in Echoes
Orley, E., Mistry , J. (Ed.), & Ranjan, R. K. (Ed.) (2026). Fabulating in Echoes. Parse, (23). https://doi.org/10.70733/8cth65gbsxwa
2026
View Output‘Holding Together Briefly: I start with an apostrophe and end with a question mark’. In Performing Punctuation
Orley, E., Preston, J. (Ed.), & Brown, A. (Ed.) (2026). ‘Holding Together Briefly: I start with an apostrophe and end with a question mark’. In Performing Punctuation. Intellect Books.
2026
View OutputRe-thinking metaphors for research degree candidature and academic careers: beyond the ‘journey’, towards enhanced inclusivity
Orley, E., Booij, S., & Walker , A. (2026). Re-thinking metaphors for research degree candidature and academic careers: beyond the ‘journey’, towards enhanced inclusivity. New Writing Journal, 22(4), 465–483. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/14790726.2025.2559603?needAccess=true
2026
View OutputConversations Between Borders
Orley, E. (2024). Conversations Between Borders: Cyclical Thinking and Alternative Worlds. Intellect Books. https://doi.org/10.1386/9781789388879_9
2024
View OutputEditing: An experiment in speculative thinking
Orley, E., Nabugodi, M. (Ed.), & Ohge, C. (Ed.) (2022). Editing: An experiment in speculative thinking. Textual Cultures, 15(1).
2022
View OutputRe-write the Rules
Orley, E. (2022). Re-write the Rules: A Walking Recipe . Digital or Visual Media https://walkcreate.gla.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/THE-WALKBOOK.pdf
2022
View OutputThe invisible boundaries of the moment: at a distance and through a different body’. In 'Thinking Through Relation: Encounters in Creative Critical Writing'
Orley, E., Mussgnug, F. (Ed.), Nabugodi, M. (Ed.), & Petrou, T. (Ed.) (2021). The invisible boundaries of the moment: at a distance and through a different body’. In 'Thinking Through Relation: Encounters in Creative Critical Writing'. Peter Lang.
2021
View OutputReview of Mohamad Hafeda’s Negotiating Conflict in Lebanon: Bordering Practices in a Divided Beirut (2019)
Orley, E., & Hilevaara, K. (2020). Review of Mohamad Hafeda’s Negotiating Conflict in Lebanon: Bordering Practices in a Divided Beirut (2019). Site-Reading Writing Quarterly, (2).
2020
View Output‘Searching Shadows, Lighting Bones: Commemorative Performance as an Open-Ended Negotiation’. In Staging Loss: Performance as Commemoration
Orley, E., Pinchbeck, M. (Ed.), & Westerside, A. (Ed.) (2019). ‘Searching Shadows, Lighting Bones: Commemorative Performance as an Open-Ended Negotiation’. In Staging Loss: Performance as Commemoration. Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-97970-0
2019
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