CJ Clarke is an award winning director and writer.
His intersectional practice crosses between narrative and experimental film, XR, photography and installation.
His work explores themes and stories at the intersection youth, identity and class. He often collaborates with other artists to enable and activate historically marginalised and socially engaged narratives.
His debut photobook Magic Party Place is collected by Museum of Modern Art (USA) and was shortlisted for the Aperture Paris Photo First Book Award 2016, Arles Authors Book Award 2017 and Photo Espana Book of the Year 2017.
Following the publication of the book he worked on an experiment short doc with Channel 4 and a multi-screen installation that was shown at the 2017 FORMAT Festival, at the Beirut Arts Centre as part of the 2017 Sharjah Biennial and in London’s Rich Mix.
He co-directed/wrote and produced the award winning immersive interactive work, Maya: The Birth of a Superhero. Maya won won the Special Jury Mention Award at the Tribeca Film Festival 2023, was selected in competition Festival de Cannes 2024, CPH:DOX 2024 and SXSW 2024, Winner Anidox Best XR Award, Winner European XR Awards 2024, shortlisted for the BFI/Chanel Award and exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
He co-directed/wrote and produced the experimental sci-fi short Fireflies, which won the Best Experimental Award at the Aesthetica Film Festival.
His film Cody’s Story won the inaugural BJP/Canon Open Shutter award and his film It Shouldn’t Happen Here was commissioned by Save the Children’s to launch their UK poverty campaign.
Centralia: Ghost Dance, a collaboration with Indian artist Poulomi Basu, premiered at The Photographers Gallery in London in 2020.
He produced the immersive films and installation Blood Speaks: A Ritual of Exile which premièred at the Margaret Mead Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, was presented at SXSW in 2019, selected for the Sheffield Doc Fest Meet Market 2018, and short-listed for the Sheffield Doc Fest Interactive Commission 2018. The three films are distributed by the Tribeca Film Institute.
He has produced and directed TV ads for RSPCA and recently for Centrepoint’s Christmas campaign with Imelda Staunton.
Widely exhibited, his work has been shown in The Photographer’s Gallery (UK) and Sharjah Biennial (Lebanon) amongst others.
His work is held in the collections of Museum of Modern Art (USA), Harvard Arts Museums (USA) and Victoria & Albert Museums (UK).
about
awards
Winner, Stereopsia European XR Awards, Best Creative Experience
Winner, Viborg Animation Festival - Anidox Best VR Award
Nominated, Festival de Cannes, Immersice Competition
Winner, Special Jury Mention Award, Maya: The Birth of a Superhero, Tribeca Film Festival
Winner, Best Experimental Award, Fireflies, Aesthetica Film Festival
Shortlisted: Rencontres d'Arles, Author Book Award 2017
Shortlisted: Photo Espana Book of the Year 2017
Longlisted: Photo London, Krazna-Kraus Book Award, 2017
Shortlisted: Aperture Paris Photo First Book Award 2016 - 'Magic Party Place.'
Canon/BJP Open Shutter Award: Winner for the film 'Mother & Daughter.'
BOOKS
Magic Party Place, (2016) published by Kehrer Verlag
A Matter of Perspective in Digital Investigative Journalism, (2018) ed. Oliver Hahn and Florian Stalph published by Palgrave MacMillan.
COLLECTIONS
Victoria & Albert Museum (UK)
Museum of Modern Art Library (USA)
Harvard Art Museums (USA)
Centralia: Ghost Dance, EMAP 2026 A Million Silver Bamboo: The Rain We Share 2026, Soeul, Korea
Fireflies and Centralia; Ghost Dance within Poulomi Basu - Phantasmagoria, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland, Oct 2025- Feb 2026
Fireflies (film) within, Poulomi Basu - Fireflies, East Gallery, Norwich, Oct-Nov 2023
Maya: The Birth of a Superhero, Victoria & Albert Museum, Sept 2023
Fireflies (film) within, Poulomi Basu - Fireflies, Autograph ABP March-June 2022
MAGIC PARTY PLACE = NEW TOWN UTOPIA, Rich Mix, London, April 2019
Magic Party Place / New Town Utopia, Sharjah Biennial, Beirut Arts Centre, October 2017
Magic Party Place, Aperture-Paris Photo First Book Shortlist exhibition, Landskrona Foto Festival, Sweden, Sept 2017
Magic Party Place, Aperture-Paris Photo First Book Shortlist exhibition, College of Art and Design, Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Aug 2017
Magic Party Place, Aperture-Paris Photo First Book Shortlist exhibition, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Le Locle, Switzerland, June 2027
Magic Party Place, Aperture-Paris Photo First Book Shortlist exhibition, Palm Springs Photo Festival, California, May 2017
Aperture-Paris Photo First Book Shortlist exhibition, The Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography, Moscow, Russia, May 2017
Magic Party Place (dreaming of a New Town Utopia), FORMAT Festival, UK, March 2027
Aperture-Paris Photo First Book Shortlist exhibition, Duesseldorf Photo Weekend, Germany, Feb 2017
Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards Shortlist Exhibition, France, Nov 2016
Magic Party Place, part of the Aperture-Paris Photo Shortlist exhibition, Ivorypress, Madrid, November 29, 2016 – January 19, 2017
‘Playgrounds’ Belfast Exposed Gallery, November April 2010
Google
The Washington Post
HP
Open Table
WW
ITV
Essec Cultural Diversity Project
The Guardian
RSPCA
Centrepoint
We Transfer
The New York Times
TIME
Global Witness
Save the Children
Action Aid
ITN
TJ Boulting
Independent Age
Trussel Trust
Woodgreen
Shelter