The Tasmanian College of the Arts third-year contemporary arts student won the inaugural Powerhouse Gallery Art Prize earlier this month for her work Nostalgia: The Duality of Memory and Place.

Hailing from Tasmania's North Coast, the 21-year-old's winning piece brought together hours of home video footage shot by her father while she was growing up in the 1990s.

The raw and personal footage tells the story on Wills's childhood, of her family and her home.

"I experienced quite strong homesickness and when I was making this work, which was late last year, I came across the fact that the term 'nostalgia' derives from 18th century doctors calling it acute homesickness," she said.

"The piece explores my relationship with place, I believe that identity and place are intrinsically linked," she said.

"Nostalgia has evolved to be a term that it quite sentimental, it's about longing for another place and time."

Wills began to work on the art piece about year after the death of her mother and said that looking through the footage was an emotional but happy experience.

"It was a really nice, beautiful part of the grieving process," she said.

"It's such a personal work so when I found out I had won it was really lovely. I was so surprised, I did not expect it at all so I was very thankful."

With just days left of her undergraduate degree, Wills put the $500 prizemoney back into her art to print her final assessment pieces.

The PowerHouse Gallery is a student-run gallery space for University of Tasmania students, the gallery can be found at the Inveresk campus of the COTA.

Wills' winning video can be seen on her website: emilyrosewills.weebly.com.