Past and Present Projects
UCLH Art Exhibition Curation
AHRC Death Cluster
As part of my PhD I run the AHRC’s Death Cluster, an online series of events for people who are interested in discussing topics relating to death or mortality. Sign up here to be notified of events:
Working with a local business, I helped to curate the art for an exhibition which took place in the main corridor of London’s University College Hospital on Euston Road.
We gathered submissions from around the world and all artists, whether new or established, were invited to submit pieces.
The exhibition ran for six months and many of the pieces were sold. Patients and visitors at the hospital gave positive feedback about the exhibition, saying it lifted their mood and created something interesting to look at while they were waiting.
Village Witch For Hire
Romani people have long been called upon to perform rituals, spells and divination for gazhe (non-Gypsies). Over the years I have performed these roles at many different town and village fêtes, and at one garden party day I even read tarot for the Mayor.
If you want to book me for something similar, drop me a line.
Embodied Sound Workshops
Embodied Sound workshops encourage participants to engage with the sounds they can make and how these change depending on which parts of the body we focus on.
Crucially, they are not singing workshops and you do not need to be able to make a “nice” sound in order to take part!
The idea is to get to know your body in a different way, and to see what comes up for you with regard to your relationship to embodiment in general, as well as to whatever specific body parts we are focusing on.
It’s been a few years since I led one of these and I am no longer able to travel to retreats or conferences to conduct them, so these are not something I currently offer.
Once upon a time I looked out of my window and thought, “There’s something really wrong with that fox.”
She had mange. I contacted Wildlife Aid, who sent me some medication for her, and I spent the next eight months rehabilitating her back to a state of full health. If you click on the image above, you will be able to watch a video of her full transformation.
Working alongside an interdisciplinary team of academics from the universities of Coventry, Pontifica (Italy), Lisbon (Portugal) and Valencia (Spain), I collected and analysed data about people who claimed no religious or spiritual affiliations but who were making use of sacred spaces such as churches and pilgrimage sites.
These so-called “religious nones” — even the ones who said they were “not spiritual at all” on our questionnaires — were nonetheless experiencing these spaces in very similar ways to their religious peers. We spoke to them about this, and I contributed to a group of papers on how atheists are using traditionally religious spaces in new ways.
Please note this is not a bereavement support group.
Bricolage of Belief
Following on from the research mentioned above, I worked with a team at the University of South Wales to study the ways in which people are building their own faiths today, often without any kind of deity, or with reference to many different deities from various paths.
The work entailed designing questionnaires, running qualitative interviews, analysing both qualitative and quantitative data, transcribing the interviews, and writing up the results.
Translation: EN, FR, DE, ES, IT, PT, NL
I have worked as a freelance translator since 2001, alongside the other jobs I’ve been doing at any given time.
I offer written translation from English to French and Romani; and from these plus German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Dutch into English.
Probably my favourite ever translation job was when I worked at a conference in Italy, live-transcribing the talks which were in Italian into English. I don’t think I’ve ever typed so fast in my life.
I was, however, in my twenties at the time and in possession of a level of energy which I no longer have access to. These days, therefore, I take on translation projects with reasonable future deadlines, rather than live-in-my-head written translation.
But it was a great fun thing to have done.
Sensitivity Reading
I have in the past done a few freelance jobs for authors and publishers, sensitivity reading texts from a Romani perspective. These days I prefer to leave the Romani sensitivity reading to those who are still living in Roma communities; there weren’t many of us online when I started out, but now there are loads, and I’d rather see the money going back into the communities the books are about.
If you’re looking for a sensitivity reader for Romani perspectives I’d be happy to put you in touch with someone appropriate for your needs.
I remain available for other types of sensitivity reading, including:
disability
wheelchair users
asexuality
abuse, trafficking & trauma survivors
cult leavers
Just send me a message with your requirements and we’ll work something out.
Sacred Spaces for Religious Nones
Fox Rehabilitation