A contemporary wearables artist, sculptor and writer with a background in community engagement, engaging rural and low-income communities in climate change dialogue using creative, place-based approaches.
I’m an artist, writer and researcher based in Tasmania/Lutruwita, Australia. I work from an off-grid solar-powered studio set in forest on an even smaller island called Bruny Island, making contemporary wearable sculptures and larger installations. I use re-purposed materials, such as plastics, discarded wood and metals. My writing is usually creative non-fiction, but like many others, I feel sure that I have a novel within me, waiting to see the light.
I began my career as a social worker, then became a social researcher working in and with communities on social and physical infrastructure projects. This work involved facilitation, evaluation, working collaboratively with groups and a wide range of professions and organisations (e.g. planners, ecologists, architects, health, education and justice personnel), all great skills when combined with artistic practice to engage communities about important issues like climate change. Through this work I learnt the power of community, the values of respect for difference and the importance of recognising and harnessing the skills of others.
For a Master of Fine Arts (Research), completed in 2025 I focused on what eco-philosopher Val Plumwood calls ‘shadow places’. Referencing sites now viewed as ‘wilderness’, but with a history of exploitation (mining, forestry, whaling), I made artworks and wrote about layers of history, entitlement and how we may ‘learn to belong’, through living more sustainably.
In 2026 my practice has shifted from this historical lens as I begin new research centred on creative climate conversations in rural and low-income communities, using my full suite of skills set to facilitate collective outcomes with communities. I piloted a model of engagement in 2025/2026 running contemporary jewellery workshops in rural locations under the title ‘AWEAR: making wearable gestures of hope about climate change’. The pilots yielded valuable insights but were limited in time and scope, so the next phase of my research will have much broader capacity.
Alongside my research I actively pursue my own individual creative practice making and exhibiting contemporary jewellery, sculptures and writing. For recent group exhibitions, sited in heritage museum settings in Tasmania, I made sculptures about the loss of marine kelp forests due to warming oceans, plastics pollution in rivers and seas, and the impacts of fishing practices on marine species.
In September-October 2026 I have been awarded a residency in Paris at Le Cité internationale des Arts, through the University of Tasmania, to undertake research about French climate change artists and organisations. The opportunity of being on the other side of the world from home means that I can also participate in the conference ‘Doing Ecology Differently’ at Goldsmith’s College London in September. I am very keen to build networks with others working with a place-based community-engaged approach to facilitating climate change dialogue through creative practices.