I’m interested in how gardens and green spaces can be created, interpreted and navigated to help build wellbeing, nature literacy and a sense of belonging. I believe natural landscapes and gardens should be as accessible as possible so that everyone, whatever their circumstances, can experience the richness of the natural world – an essential route to better mental health, community cohesion and preserving biodiversity in the face of climate change. I’m currently helping to maintain an NHS community care garden in central London, supporting training in horticulture skills, designing multi sensory tours of green spaces for groups facing barriers to access to nature, and I’m training with a nature-focused flower farm.

In my artistic practice, I work with mixed media, including documentary photography and sound, mainly focused on London, where I’m based. My work generally takes a systems approach and explores how people experience and relate to physical space and the natural world, with a particular focus on urban environments, environmental change, mental wellbeing and questions of access to nature. Drawing on my own experiences and reflections on how I engage with the environment around me, I am especially interested in how sensory approaches, particularly sound and image, can open up alternative ways of appreciating nature. Looking at natural history, social context and lived experience, I try to work in a way that invites reflection and dialogue.

My past projects examine species, cultural practices and and their relationship with movement, space and the environment. Fly Over My City, developed in collaboration with the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, explores the lives of common swifts, the built environment and the challenges of coexisting with urban wildlife. The project incorporates a soundscape to evoke the presence of a migratory species that is often heard but not so easily seen. In Manifestations: Lion Dance and I, exhibited in London in 2023, I documented a traditional Cantonese lion dance troupe, combining image and sound, including interviews, to explore rhythm, movement and the transmission of cultural knowledge within a Cantonese-British community.

I am a Fellow of the Linnean Society of Natural History, London, who I’ve collaborated with in the Framed Fish Project.

Exhibitions

• May-July 2024 Fly Over My City, exhibit at Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Oxford
• September and October 2023 Manifestations: Lion Dance and I, a self-curated mixed media two-day installation and talk in collaboration with Tang’s Pak Mei and Celestial Peach at the Charing Cross Library, London
• June 2023 Fly Over My City, a mixed media exhibition as part of UAL graduation show at Free Range, London

Awards

• 2015 British Empire Medal for services to gender and equality