Somatic filmmaking

Moving with Plants is part of the Hackney Project developed in collaboration with Claire Loussouarn. Recently edited from previously untouched footage filmed in 2024, the film explores a final year of correspondence with the Marshes through embodied encounters between movement, plants, and environment. The soundscape was developed in collaboration with Lee Berwick from Digidub. The film is currently being shown at the Tower Gallery as part of an exhibition on liminality.

Bodies as Earth is a commissioned documentary of Helen Edwards’ community dance project in Oxford, where participants were invited to respond to choreographic scores developed through an iterative process. Alongside filming with a hand-held camera, I placed several GoPro cameras in trees and another inside a performer’s suitcase, enabling subjective perspectives to emerge from both the environment and the performers.

In May 2026, I travelled to Riga to co-facilitate a workshop with Daphne Darendorf for the scentartfestival. It was a rich experience to meet artists whose practices engage with scent as an artistic medium and relational catalyst. This experience has enabled me to consider scent as another medium to explore within my own work.

The workshop invited participants to work in pairs to create sensory journeys for one another through scent, tactile objects, and attentive listening. This was followed by periods of solo drawing and writing, and then by a dyadic verbal exchange. It was moving to witness how quickly trust, imagination, and embodied attention emerged through these simple relational structures. We are deeply grateful to everyone who participated with such openness and generosity.

As part of the London LUX Critical Forum 2026, I recently facilitated a workshop at LUX inspired by Screendance artist Ami Skånberg whom I interviewed as part of my Doctor of Arts research. For this workshop, participants used their phones both as cameras and as displays, creating a dynamic interplay between filming and viewing. The workshop drew on my research methods of dyadic practice and role-swapping, allowing participants to experience being on both sides of the camera. I also combined ideas of proxemics with Laban’s theories of space, opening a playful exploration of relationality, movement, framing, and attention.

The session included moments of reflection, and participants commented on how being filmed could shift power dynamics.

In August 2024, I facilitated a workshop at Otherfield Film Festival, sharing one of the filming scores developed during my doctoral research. The score invited participants to alternate between filming and being filmed, fostering reciprocity and understanding through an exchange of roles. I particularly value the festival’s commitment to creating “a grassroots gathering of non-fiction filmmakers” away from industry pressure.