INTRODUCTION.

I graduated from SOAS University of London in 2017 with an MA in Anthropology of Travel, Tourism and Pilgrimage, and worked as a Higher Education lecturer in Social Sciences and Humanities in the UK for a decade. I have travelled extensively since childhood; at age eight, while living in West Asia and North Africa, I first knew I wanted to be an explorer. 

My anthropological research centres on exploration and expedition, informed by my own diasporic experience and questions of place, land, and belonging as a white Australian. I predominantly focus 'womens lives', addressing their absence within male-dominated documentaries of exploration, and now approach 'expedition' as a decolonial practice, deconstructing historic accounts of exploration from male conquest to a contemporary view of the Arctic anthroposcene.

I have worked as a photographer and darkroom technician since 1998. After moving to digital in 2010, I returned to analogue in 2023, building a darkroom and beginning again. In an era shaped by AI and digital immediacy, this return to film operates as an ethnographic practice in itself. My portfolio (2000–2025) combines analogue and digital work, using Nikon FM2n, Nikon FG, Nikon D200, Nikon D50, Zeiss Ikonta, and iPhone SE.

My work functions as anthropological inquiry. The Arctic Circle Project (66.33°N) is a longitudinal study of life above an invisible boundary shaping the physical and cultural realities of the far North. Moving between remote wilderness and urban communities, it examines globalisation, belonging, and contemporary forms of modern pilgrimage. Using analogue and large-format processes, I prioritise slow, deliberate, and unobtrusive documentation.

This methodology extends to travel itself: I use public transport, move slowly, and embed within local rhythms to challenge touristic expectations and produce a more grounded visual record of the Arctic.

I am also interested in materially embedding place into process—for example, developing film with melted Arctic snow—creating both a physical and conceptual trace of the environment within the image. Moving forward from 2027, I will be exhibiting photographs from each stage of my Arctic Circle 66.33'N project until its completion in 2030.