If successful in receiving this bursary, the funding will support the research and development of ‘Following the Ragwort’ — a collaborative, cross-border activity exploring the intricate relationships between people, plants, and the environments we shape together.
This activity traces the reverse journey of the Oxford Ragwort—a hybrid plant whose path from Mount Etna to Northern England reflects deeper narratives of migration, resilience, and connection. I will travel by train from Darlington to Sicily, engaging with local communities and botanists along the way, using film to document the journey. Through workshops and conversations, participants will be invited to respond to the plant’s story with drawings and reflections. These contributions will form a collaborative ‘hybridized’ digital artwork, echoing both the Ragwort’s physical journey and the human networks it touches.
Brought to Britain in the 18th century and spread via the railways, the Oxford Ragwort thrives in overlooked places, embankments and industrial edges. My initial encounter with the Oxford Ragwort came through a creative collaboration with botanist Dave Barlow, during a plant survey around Middlesbrough Railway Station, where I first heard the plant’s story.
The activity is also deeply personal. A recently uncovered family connection to Sicily mirrors the plant’s origin. Retracing this path becomes a meditation on return, memory, and layered identity. Travelling by train is both a conceptual and sustainable choice, tying the journey to its ecological and historical roots.
Working independently, outside formal institutions, often limits access to resources and technical support necessary for ambitious projects. This bursary will provide vital space and funding to develop my audio-visual skills through training and practice. The resulting digital artwork will be exhibited online and in public spaces, accompanied by community stories and botanical insight. The bursary will fund vital fieldwork, travel, and collaborative workshops with ecologists, historians, and local communities around Darlington, Oxford and in Sicily—fostering cross-disciplinary exchange and grounding the project in shared knowledge.
Receiving this support would be transformative, allowing me to work sustainably and, importantly, to improve how I communicate my work—moving my practice forward with greater creative and critical impact both within and outside of the North East region.
My practice engages diverse audiences and fosters dialogue around the environment and shared histories that resonate with Darlington and its surrounding areas. My work, particularly through projects like ‘Following the Ragwort’, has strong potential to enhance and raise the profile of the creative arts in Darlington by connecting local ecological and cultural narratives with broader themes of movement, adaptation, and sustainability.
As my home town, I am familiar with Darlington’s rich industrial and natural heritage, which provides a compelling context for exploring place, identity, and ecological stewardship through the arts. My interdisciplinary practice often brings together artists, scientists, residents, and cultural organisations, encouraging inclusive opportunities for creative expression and learning.
Through exhibition, participatory workshops, and public engagement activities, I aim to contribute to the visibility and vitality of Darlington’s creative scene—showcasing how the arts can be a powerful tool for social and environmental reflection. By linking local stories with global ecological conversations, my work will support a vision of Darlington as a culturally rich, forward-thinking community where creativity, connection, and care for place thrive together.
I work across a diverse range of media to create artworks that respond to fragile or overlooked natural habitats, and to the ways in which human social histories have shaped them. Using primarily natural materials and processes, my practice includes drawing, printmaking, book works, and site-specific installations, exploring themes such as energy production, plant science, and habitat creation. Raised in a northern railway town steeped in traditions of manual labour—blacksmithing, mining, bricklaying, and agriculture—I come from a family of so-called ‘unskilled’ labourers and domestic workers. These histories continue to resonate in my work through an intuitive, tactile engagement with materials, and a repetitive, process-driven approach to making. I am particularly interested in how identity—class, gender, labour, and heritage—intersects with environmental challenges. My work explores how these elements shape both the degradation of natural systems and the potential for their regeneration. I have exhibited at mima, the Bowes Museum, and Tate Exchange, and have completed several significant place-based commissions and residencies. In 2021, I was commissioned by Dwellbeing in Newcastle to collaborate with a local cooperative in creating a wildflower meadow referencing the historical footprint of a water mill. The project is now maintained by residents and functions as a bio-resource for Northumbria University. Drawings, prints, and texts developed during the commission were later shown in HabitAbility at NewBridge Gallery, Newcastle (2022). From 2023–24, I was one of two artists-in-residence at Cresswell Pele Tower & Walled Garden, Northumberland, as part of a year-long pilot arts project. This residency explored heritage, ecology, and community through participatory activities, archival research, and public events.
2016-17 Post Graduate Diploma, Collaborative Practice, Manchester Metropolitan University
1992-93 Post Graduate Certificate in Education, Art & Design (11 – 18yrs), Middlesex University
1990 BA (Hons) Fine Art, Sculpture, Leeds Polytechnic
2025 North Shields Culture & Creative Zone – small grant for In-Place to develop a public arts commission
2022 North of Tyne, Creative UK Investment Fund award – small grant to develop Print in Place project.
2022 CVAN, North East Artist’s Fund – awarded to develop a project proposal for In-Place collective project.
2020 Freelands Foundation Emergency Fund – to support arts practice.
2015 Development Award, Chrysalis Arts and YVAN – small grant for research & development
2015 Grants for the Arts Award, Arts Council England – Collections Project in partnership with Navigator
North, engaging public audiences in museum collections
Since 2022, founding member of an artist-led studio group, ’In-Place’, in North Shields, collectively making work that seeks to highlight or activate disinvested spaces within our locale. Secured funding to complete inaugural group project ‘Print In Place’ using print to challenge, question, or enhance our relationship with place. Developing networks and identifying and developing project opportunities within and outside of the region.
2020-21 Tunnel Gallery commission, Historic England (Heritage Action Zone), lead by Navigator North with Middlesbrough Cultural Partnership. As part of a pilot project to re-launch the Tunnel Gallery, created an installation Inspired by the town’s links to the Arts & Craft movement and the historical role women played in the development of botanical art and science. Based on my own drawings of Thale cress; a ‘weed’ found by medical researchers to have significant potential in the treatment of breast cancer.
2019-20 #Untitled10, one of ten artists commissioned by The Bowes Museum to respond to their collection. Produced experimental carbon drawings and used archival material to examine the way in which coal and land ownership shaped local power relations, economies and landscapes.
2019 Invited to screen films for mima’s Fragile Earth: seeds, weeds, plastic crust exhibition. Thread I and Thread II raise questions about the pastime of removing or ‘treasuring’ objects from nature and the subsequent impact on local ecologies. The work is aligned to drawing; the repetitive activity is suggestive of mark making or analogous to the act of stitching – to mend or repair. In this context, a reflection on, and a metaphor for restorative action.
A_N, narc, mimazina – Nature Appreciation Society: November 2020 and December 2020, the Crack, Teesside Gazette, the Northern Echo, Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland newsletter, 2020.
I recently collaborated with Cresswell Pele Tower Projects, Northumberland, on a creative pilot connecting people to the site’s built and natural heritage, and restoration, working alongside volunteers, staff and visitors as one of two artists-in-residence. The learning from the pilot project is informing development of a future embedded arts residency at Cresswell.
Email: coops1450@hotmail.com
Address: 7 Percy Avenue, Whitley Bay, Tyne & Wear, NE26 3PR, GB
Local Authority: Tyne & Wear
