Emma Burke Newman (in memoriam)

Emma's bike on Mull September 2022 This was a pilgrimage of sorts, following in our daughter’s tracks, to the Isle of Mull, one of Scotland's largest islands. It would be three years nearly to the day of Emma's stay on Sept. 24-25, 2022.    John and I wanted to do it exactly how Emma did, taking our cycles on the train to Oban from Glasgow, then the ferry to the island, and an overnight at the bothy—a very basic and free hut for travelers.     Reality set in. The logistics didn’t work of renting bicycles in Glasgow. Instead, we rented a room in a hotel near the ferry that offered inexpensive bicycle rentals. E-bikes, to be exact.  It was a Tuesday afternoon in September by the time we checked into the hotel, so we planned the trip to the bothy for the next day. I thought it would be easy, only 1.5 hours from the hotel, according to our map app. The trip actually took six hours.  The app didn’t factor in our missing the turn onto the A849, which...

Upon cracking open one of Emma’s many books, I recently discovered a series of cards and bookmarks she made in late 2022. I’m touched, literally, to hold these traces of her creativity and craft.  One friend said they were probably potato prints, and appear to be made on handcut watercolor paper. If the friend remembers correctly, Emma wasn’t happy with the result. No, they are not perfect. But me, I love the playfulness, irregularity, and singularity of the stars. Some of them look like explosions or someone reaching out in all directions. It’s her!  May Emma's star touch you as well this festive season. 

Applications for the €5,000 prize due Feb. 28, 2026 (Voir la version française ci-dessous.) PARIS. [5] December 2025 – Association EBN today is launching 2 nd annual €5,000 Architecture and Arts grant for young adults in the memory of Emma Burke Newman.  The grant supports the realization of a community-shaping artistic, educational, or cross-cultural project by a young adult (17-35) residing in the EEA, the U.K., or U.S. in the fields of art, architecture, or place-making—including ones that address cycling or road safety—and reflecting the values of Emma Burke Newman. “The grant is dedicated to the memory of Emma, to honor her compassion, community, and creativity as well as her zest for life and learning,” said association President Rose Marie Burke and the young woman’s mother. Tragically, Emma was killed by a truck driver while she was cycling to university on Jan. 27, 2023, in Glasgow. “New for 2026, the jury decided to place more of an emphasize on architecture, ...

  Association EBN is delighted to announce that U.K. artist Pax Alberto is the winner of the 2025 Art and Architecture Grant, established in memory of Emma Burke Newman. Pax’s project will fund free and inclusive puppet theatre workshops for underserved communities in and around Bristol, England, where Pax resides. (VF en-dessus) What’s more, the workshops will feed into a spring 2026 People's Puppet Opera at the Cube Microplex in the city. Assisting Pax with the performance will be members of Beanpig Puppets , which they cofounded in 2019. This collective of queer puppeteers and performers “believe in the life of all things,” Pax wrote in their application for the grant. “We like to use expanding the imagination as a revolutionary tool, to practice dreaming of other worlds, and realise that they are possible. These ideas are conveyed in abstract and surreal puppet shows, which we see as rituals of facilitation in the lives of our puppets,” Pax explains, “Ultimately, they c...

Source: WildWorks Glasgow.  WildWorks Glasgow is digging into its Residency for Ideas, the annual grant and professional mentoring program for students at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, created in the memory of Emma.  Collaboration abounds as this space-creating experiment into new approaches to architectural practice evolves. The WildWorks project was born after the selection committee for Residency for Ideas approached the applicants of two separate proposals with the prospect of combining their efforts. Their new proposal captured the 2025 prize. Subsequently, the four students behind the collaboration-- Jim Cowie, Robin Simpson, Finlay Wellings, and Lily Whitehouse --joined WildWorks Glasgow, which is dedicating its efforts this summer to testing several ideas. Furthermore, in May, WildWorks Glasgow began collaborating with Arches DIY to start a conversation about how to make an existing urban space better serve the surrounding community, which since then has been ...

Here, I interview Céline Dogsé about her time with Emma in Seoul in the summer of 2018. The two went to UCL in the same program ( BASC ) and they were friends of friends in Paris, but it was a happy coincidence that found themselves both going to the prestigious Seoul National University for summer studies. Now Emma could have taken Machine Learning or Macroeconomics, but she told me in no uncertain terms that  "I want to take some art classes. I don't want to do anything academic." Once there, she mentioned that the atmosphere was serious. This was no summer camp! Indeed, teachers assigned grades that counted toward the daughter's UCL graduation requirements. As the transcript shows, Emma nevertheless earned high marks that were carefully transcribed into English equivalents--a 90% average for three classes, pottery, painting and architecture. UCL then registered these simply as a "P" for pass! In the mix, these grades did not matter. Emma still graduated w...

Emma in painting class at Seoul National University, summer 2018  (Voir la version française ci-dessous.) This grant supports the realization by a young adult of a concrete personal art or place-making project in memory of the life and values of Emma Burke Newman. Rationale: This grant is given in memory of Emma Burke Newman, a second-year architecture student at The Mackintosh School of Architecture and a designer at New Practice, both in Glasgow. Emma was tragically killed by a lorry driver on Jan. 27, 2023, while cycling to the university. Association EBN has created the grant to promote Emma’s values of compassion, community, and creativity as well as her zest for life and learning. She had an infectious laugh, a compassionate hug, marvelous personal flair, and a great sense of adventure. Emma was always looking for the next concert to attend, route to cycle, or skill to learn. She had plans to learn the banjo, take a DJ workshop, and walk the Munros of Scotland! Emma, born and...