Rewriting health and healing narratives through art and science.
Located at the intersection of art and science, my work engages with ecosystems of health and explores new approaches to healing and wellbeing. It embraces hope as a form of resistance and seeks to foster social, cultural, and epistemological justice.
Art
My creative practice explores the complex entanglements of surviving, healing, being, and existing on one’s own terms. My artwork seeks to ‘practice life into being’, to foster connection and joy, and to offer the hopeful horizons we sometimes lack in ourselves and the wider world.
As an interdisciplinary artist, I weave drawing, painting, photography, filmmaking, movement, and writing, and often turn to nature for inspiration.
My artwork has been exhibited internationally since 2005 and some of my work is held in the Central Saint Martins Museum.
Research
I collaborate with universities and research organisations on 3 main strands of research work:
1) Designing and producing creative outputs that translate research into accessible and engaging formats that support meaningful, lasting impact.
2) Exploring the embodied experience of trauma and developing new trauma-informed and creative approaches to healing through interdisciplinary research.
3) Developing frameworks and guidance on the values, principles, and approaches of ethical, trauma-informed, survivor-centred research.
Consultancy
I provide consultancy on trauma-informed practice, lived experience involvement (or PPI), co-production, research ethics, arts for health, and creative, embodied, and participatory methods.
I support organisations across research, arts, health, and non-profit sectors to develop more ethical, inclusive, and equitable practices.
This includes advisory support, bespoke training and guidance, strategy, programme and project development, and oversight.
Training
I design and deliver workshops, training, and reflective learning spaces on understanding trauma, trauma-informed and trauma-sensitive practice, creative methods, and arts for health. Grounded in evidence as well as lived and professional experience, my approach combines relational trauma-informed facilitation with theory, practical application, discussion, creative exercises, and reflection. Trainings are tailored to diverse audiences across the health, wellbeing, research, education, arts and culture, and non-profit sectors, including clinicians, creative health practitioners, yoga and somatic practitioners, academics, educators, artists, curators, and organisational leaders.
A little bit of background
I trained as a dancer with the Ballet de la Côte in Switzerland before studying arts at Central Saint Martins, creative arts and mental health sciences at Queen Mary University of London, neuroscience and traumatic stress at the Justice Resource Institute, and psychology at King’s College London. I was also awarded an Improvement Leader Fellowship by NIHR CLAHRC NWL.
As an interdisciplinary practitioner, I have led cross-sector programmes and projects nationally and internationally, and have had the joy of collaborating with colleagues across arts and culture, research, health, and social impact. This has included work with organisations and institutions such as the Whitechapel Gallery, Central Saint Martins, UCL, the University of Cambridge, Wellcome, the NIHR, and NHS Trusts, among others. Previously CEO of Traumascapes CIC, a non-profit organisation dedicated to addressing trauma through art and science, I am now returning to my independent practice. My work has been published, presented, and exhibited internationally since 2005.
When I’m not working, you’ll usually find me walking in the forest, practising yoga inversions, or playing TTRPGs.
Current roles:
International Advisory Board, The Lancet Psychiatry
Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, King’s College London
Visiting Lecturer, MASc Creative Health, UCL
Visiting Lecturer, MSc Creative Arts and Mental Health, Queen Mary University of London
Visiting Lecturer, MA Performance: Screen, Central Saint Martins
Data Monitoring and Ethics Committee, University of Oxford
Collaborators
