I am a UK-based, socially responsible designer, researcher and community activist. I have a long-held interest in the natural world, materials, cooperative practices and communication through art and design.
In my life time humans have tipped the Earth into a climate crisis due to exploitation, extraction and overconsumption. While I have worked for many years on technology projects, I believe significant systems change will come from actions in the physical realm.
I have significant experience in working for cooperatives and in community activism. In 2015, I co-founded Transition Town Hastings as a platform for the local community to collaborate around low carbon living.
I work in the emerging area of the designer as a facilitator alongside citizen designers and their visions for a sustainable life. My practice centres on meta and transition design, participatory design, systems thinking and design anthropology. My ambition is to focus more on the knowledge and wisdom of people in local communities and to broaden participation to include marginal groups and the nonhuman world.
In Autumn 2020, I completed an MA in Sustainable Design at the University of Brighton. My research investigates the ‘commons’ as space and process and as a route to reclaiming our shared inheritance and building a sustainable future. My MA research looked at social relations within commoning practices and identified the need to widen the boundaries of visualisation work to include nonhuman actors. My work aims to catalyse and support commons-based practices within local communities. My projects included a walking model for women to identify public spaces with potential as collective growing spaces and the co-design of a local festival of sustainable practices called ‘Sustainability on Sea’. The festival work led to a realisation of a network of climate activists through data visualisation work. I also led a team of residents to develop Hastings’ first Car Free Day.
For my final master’s project, I explored how design could support and make visible commons practices. My research uses design practice to observe, engage and intervene in commons discourses. My practice is place-based and participatory, engaging people in co-creating regenerative futures. I use design artefacts, DIY making, walking, community organising and research to foster a commons culture.
I have strong skills in graphic and information design, design and systems thinking, research and project management. I have over 25 years of experience working for national and international organisations such as Amnesty, British Council, MENCAP and Shelter and for design and technology cooperatives and collectives.
I recently completed a design placement with Policy Lab UK and am a visiting lecturer on the MA Sustainable Design at the University of Brighton.
If you have a project in mind, please get in touch.