I work with material history and film. I'm interested in how our experiences of work, consumption and industry are shaped out of the material past, and I’m interested in methods of researching and relaying these experiences through film.

    • The material constitution and histories of industry, energy and work

    • Phenomenological approaches to historical experience: how we experience history, and how history presents itself to us in different ways and in different contexts

    • Historical experience post-globalization

    • Everyday political economy

    • Traditions in oral history, social documentary photography and ethnographic film

  • Bradford Forwards and Backwards (2025)

    AHRC-funded project on material history and post-industrial experience

    The Man From Tormentor (2021)

    Machine kink and industrial reinvention in the Forest of Dean

  • I’m working on a long-term project about downstream oil and gas in the UK.

    I also work on commissioned films, directing projects for research institutes and archives including KCL, Imperial, Cambridge University, UKDRI, the Hamilton Kerr Institute and the War Graves Commission.

  • calmurphybarton[at]protonmail.com