EXPERIENCE
Making Well Course Lead, Fathom Trust, 2023 - Present
Working alongside the Fathom Trust, my role includes curating and facilitating eight-week green prescribing courses in the Brecon Beacons combining therapeutic nature-connection and traditional craft activities. My role this year also involves the design of a community Apothecary Garden, funded by the National Garden Scheme. The Apothecary Garden will sit at the heart of one of Fathom Trusts Making Well communities, creating a place for groups to come together through communal acts of tending and growing while recuperating among the healing qualities of these medicinal plants. Throughout it's development we hope to tell a story of a garden in which we can live, labour and thrive together with the natural world. The Apothecary Garden will offer participatory workshops for those taking part in Making Well, Fathom Trusts flagship green prescribing course, facilitated by a team of nature & craft-based practitioners. With thanks to artist Sylwia Mucha Harris for her beautiful artwork inspired by the Making Well garden.
Founder and Coordinator of Green Minds Community Ecotherapy Project, in partnership with Brecon & District Mind, Powys, 2019 - 2023
Green Minds launched in late 2019 seeded with an intention to explore wellbeing through meaningful community-led interventions in nature. Through the use of horticultural activities, restorative nature-therapy sessions and craft-making, Green Minds became an invaluable service for local people seeking support during the Covid-19 pandemic. Since an initial investment from Powys Association of Voluntary Organisations, Green Minds has received ongoing support from local grant giving charities and organisations such as the Bannau Brycheiniog Sustainable Development Fund, Brecon Town Council, Heritage Lottery Fund and Moondance Foundation. Green Minds continues to thrive, creating inspiring and healing encounters between local people and places.
Visiting Practitioner, Plattform Haf, Peak Cymru, 2022
"In Summer 2022, Platfform Haf brought together a group of eight young people to make, share, listen and imagine with artists, writers, geologists and activists. Gathering around ways of thinking about climate change, hope, power and collective making, the group explored kinship in nature, personal climate languages, deep time, resources of hope and how we carry questions for the future." An inspiring collaboration co-creating experiences around kinship and the art of noticing. Wandering the townscape with a keen eye for green and growing things. Making ground nests beneath veteran trees before wandering with new eyes, mapping, rooting and communing with the plant allies of Linda Vista Gardens in Abergavenny
Environmental Artist in Residence at Edge of the Wild Ecopsychology Gathering, UK, 2017
"Bringing together the political and imaginal, joining together in reflection, dream, play, and action; celebrating delight and being present with the pain." Supporting creativity throughout the gathering. Stitching social tapestries, entering into alchemic processes of charcoal making, and for the early birds a dawn walk, traversing from silence into symphony. Making meaning, maps and marks along the way.
Co-producer of EMBARK at The Forest of Imagination, Bath, 2016
Over four days a number of forests took root and physically grew in and around Bath Abbey. The importance of forests, both global and local, were brought into sharp focus with 1,000 living and handmade trees transforming the spaces around Bath Abbey, Abbey Green and beyond. Embark facilitated spontaneous, sensory, human/nature interactions, leading to thoughtful and immersive encounters with other living and breathing species among the forest.
Artist with School Without Walls, 2016
"School Without Walls embodies a philosophy that places the children at the centre of their own learning. By transplanting them into a cultural setting, the conventions, behaviours and habits associated with the ‘classroom’ start to fall away" A project in partnership with The Pound, a rural arts centre in Wiltshire. Working with local primary school groups, taking up residence in the gallery and garden spaces, exploring encounters with nature through music, poetry and performance.
Embodied Ecology Arts, Somerset, 2013 - 2015
A collective of women artists exploring landscape encounters through participatory, eco-somatic experiences. Homing in on themes of soulful activism and art-through-being. With gratitude to Carla Walmsley-Esteves and Helen Lawrence for this poetic collaboration, and to all of the women who participated in this ongoing inquiry. With thanks to artistic photographer Jenny Hardy
