Research

My research interests intersect with my professional practice (and vice-versa). Some of the things that I am interested in include:

• Cities (how they are written, imagined, governed)
• Ideas of ‘the civic’.
• Festivals and public art
• Research as creative practice
• Public engagement & co-produced research methodologies
• Creative Critical Writing

Research meets practice

Since completing my PhD in 2012, my research has developed alongside an ongoing professional career in community arts, public and civic engagement. At times I’ve been more of a researcher, at others more of a professional practitioner. Either way, a large proportion of my research has been explored through practice.

In 2014 I designed a peripatetic ‘mini-festival’ to go into the homes of socially isolated people with dementia, via the AHRC-funded project ‘Bloomsbury Festival in a Box’.

In 2020 I published a practice based piece documenting the empty house of folklorists Iona and Peter Opie (my grandparents). A second piece exploring the legacies of the Opies was published in 2025 as part of Playing the Archive: from the Opies to the Digital Playground (UCL Press).

My current role as Head of Civic Engagement at Goldsmiths, University of London is not an academic post, and is fully hands on. However my day-to-day work is deeply informed by my research background and interests and in my own time I am still reading, writing and occasionally publishing new work on cities, urban cultures, and engagement. This mostly happens in the form of short pieces of journalism or creative writing.

Research publications

‘Hopscotching the Opies: Playing (with) the Archive in Bloomsbury’. In, Playing the Archive: from the Opies to the Digital Playground. UCL Press. (2025).

‘Afterword’. In, New Worlds, New Beginnings: Resilience and Connectivity through poetry’. Parthian Books. (2021).

‘Documenting Disappearance: A Day in the “Research Laboratory” of Iona and Peter Opie‘. Performance Research. (2020)

Bloomsbury Festival in a Box: engaging socially isolated people with dementia. Final Project Report to AHRC. (2014).

Arts on Prescription: a qualitative longitudinal outcomes study (co-authored with Dr Theodore Stickley). Public Health. (2013).

‘Cells, Recesses, Tombs: Vertiginous Spaces in Bataille’s Le Bleu du ciel’. MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities, Vol. 4.(2009).

Creative Writing

‘When the Ghost Train Goes By‘. Crow & Cross Keys. (2024). (fiction).

‘The Rats of Rush Common’. Elsewhere: a journal of place. (2023). (creative nonfiction)

‘The Wood’. Spelt. Issue 7. (2022). (creative nonfiction)

‘The Pools’. Confluence. Issue 13. (2022). (fiction).

‘Funfair’. Mechanics Institute Review. (2021). (creative nonfiction).

‘Fox Masks’. Reflex Press. (2020). (fiction)

‘May Day Interrupted’. Mechanics Institute Review. (2020).

Media pieces and blogs

‘Local engagement, national conversation’. Arts Professional. (2025).

‘Public Engagement in a Pandemic – lessons from Being Human’. Wonkhe. (2020).

‘When the Festivals Fell Silent’. Arts Professional. (2020).

‘Want to save the humanities? Try getting off your pedestal’. Wonkhe. (2019).

‘6 Hidden Gems to Check Out as Part of this Free Festival’. Londonist. (2019).

‘Sex, solitude and secrets: what we learnt from Londoners’ anonymous diaries’. (With Elizabeth Dearnley). The i. (2018)

Tensions between the everyday and the exceptional. Arts Professional. (2018).

Still Invited to the Party: Festival in a Box. Arts Professional. (2016).

Festival in a Box: archives. Talking Humanities (blog). (2015).

Being Human: a new forum for public engagement with the humanities. NCCPE guest blog. (2014).