Creative ID: 642
Kaukapakapa, Auckland
My arts or creative practice (including details about my specific focus within that art form/practice and my strengths):
I'm a practice-led research artist with an expanded drawing practice, making environmental works on paper, video, sound, and sculpture. I develop experiential learning around nature and culture, and how it feels to be in touch with environment, community, and self. I research, design, and lead cultural programmes that encourage the public to ‘get out into nature', seeking to transform public perception and connection with ecology through outdoor arts workshops and projects. I have a NZ work visa and am therefore eligible to work in New Zealand and hold a full driver’s license. My CV is available on request.
My track record of experience and success - or the track record of experience and success of the creative or artist that I will partner with:
I create eco-social engagements to develop eco-mindfulness, reconnect people with the environment, and transform public perception of ecology and sustainability. For over 10 years I have designed and delivered multi-layered programmes that seek to not only meaningfully engage the community with environment and culture but also contribute to new understandings through exploration, making, and reflection. I developed this approach in my most recent work with communities on the Outer Hebrides (UK), where, over a 4-year period, I designed and led several highly effective public programmes that built capacity and enthusiasm for collective action on climate change. This work culminated in a public exhibition and video presentation.
Describe the experience you have had working with children or young people, teaching or facilitating creative processes:
I am an ecological artist based in Kaukapakapa, Auckland. I have developed a practice of 'experience creation' as a way to open up perception of nature by designing and leading creative community and schools’ programming to build capacity and enthusiasm for climate action towards more sustainable living. I have devised and delivered several schools-based programmes to develop eco-mindfulness, reconnect students with the environment, and transform perception of ecology and sustainability. These can be found on my online portfolio.
The video presentation for one project captured the activities of valuable intergenerational teaching being carried out in the Outer Hebrides (UK), by local crofters who deliver a crofting course as part of the high school curriculum. The specific strains of arable crops grown on these islands are unique, short-stalked, and weather-resistant, and each harvest ensures the possibility of next year’s crop. This sort of activity is under-recognised by those outside of the crofting world, yet it has vital messages to impart to young people and society relating to food security and sustainable agricultural practices that can help to ensure the survival of small communities in marginal locations.
I co-designed a cultural programme to revitalise island youth engagement with crofting and environment. This approach delivered a thoughtful and physical investigation of the crofting way of life and the unique machair environment, as a method to encourage more young people to engage with crofting (the traditional form of agricultural land tenure particular to the Scottish Highlands and Islands), meet the people who worked on the land, and connect with the ecological importance of the machair. It was designed, in two iterations, as four-day seasonal engagement workshops with groups of self-nominated island youths to expand their knowledge of local crofting life and explore the working landscape through multiple art-based perspectives, increasing possibilities for their future lives as land stewards, contractors, or scientists.
Why I want to be part of the Creatives in Schools programme and how my involvement will link to my creative practice:
I am a committed and energetic practitioner and would like to find a more connected role within local schools to enable longer term engagement with pupils to support their development using new and traditional media. This approach will support my development as a creative practitioner connecting society to ecology through arts practices.