Work

I describe myself as a local historian.

The way my work appears is in journalism and arts production. In my opinion, the two kinds of work are very important to one another. All the jobs I love doing involve having a nice conversation with someone and then making something make sense.

Journalism

My favourite text I've written is Stories from Ikea Tottenham, a series of short tales about my mother and work.

I write about community and geography, as seen in this investigative murder mystery piece in Edmonton, this article about Black self-building in Lewisham, and this picture story about antiracist organising in Southall, which is also more fleshed out in this podcast. I interviewed people about Axe FM and the history of grime music for my podcast you can hear here. If you want I can talk for a long time about why Chinese aunties dancing in public squares is a form of architecture.

My other speciality is compassionately unpicking norms around gender and sexuality: you can read my confessional hot takes around loving cis-het boys as a queer woman here, as well as a tribute to platonic sapphic friendship via Tiktok here. My upcoming zine is called 'When Did You First Realise You Were a Straight Man?'

Finally, I am a pretty dab hand at promoting photographers and artists, after running an online magazine for Magnum Photos for 2 years. Like the blog posts on the website you're on now, I've developed lots of in depth digital content about the creative industry that has an educational or practice-based slant. Check this interview with Turkish photojournalist Sabiha Cimen or this reflective chat with the young participants of a vocational course.

Production/Programming

It's all well and good making content for the internet but what really stokes my fire is learning with people IRL in different generations and different walks of life. For example check Close Quarters, my term-long project for Year 9/10 pupils at Edmonton County School which I self-funded through Arts Council: see the online exhibition and a short movie about it here.

There was Emerging Writers in Residence, another project I got Lottery funding for, for my old workplace. I recruited six new photography critics, programmed a series of lectures for them, and commissioned and edited long-reads by each of them. See the work we made here.

I'm a pretty good curatorial admin babe who loves exhibition interpretation. I researched, produced, and assisted on design for, the Design Museum's exhibition, Hope to Nope: Graphic Design and Politics - see an overview of it here.