I am Ethnobotanist and apprentice herbalist, with an academic background in the study of religious traditions and Indigenous methodologies (University of Edinburgh and University of Tromsø).
My work is centred around multi species reciprocity, land-based knowledge, and the importance of spiritual wisdom to food and health custodianship/sovereignty.
If you are looking into learning more about plants and ethnobotany or if you would like to collaborate with me I would love to hear from you about:
- ethnobotanical consultancy for artists, filmmakers, educators, galleries, museums, businesses
- research, mentoring and editing work in ethnobotany; agroecology; food systems studies/food sovereignty; religious studies; sacred ecology (hieroecology) indigenous studies
- multimedia ethnographic documentation (audio; visual)
- workshops and lectures
- creative practice and installations
- foraging walks and bespoke events with kids, young adults and adults on ethnobotany, traditional knowledge and land observation and connection
- commissions of written content
Research experience in the Alps, India, Norway, Madagascar and Nepal enriched my understanding and appreciation of multispecies relationships and the many ways communities interact with, and learn from their lands. My practice combines research, ethnography, apprenticing and multimedia outputs by weaving together the threads of botany, sound ecology, herbalism, herding, spiritual traditions, agroecology, and fibre, dye and dairy making.
Recent research projects included: recording the local sacred oral literature and documenting the nexus between spiritual and agricultural practices of the village of Malikarjun, in the Kailash Sacred Landscape; documenting dairy and land guardianship practices among transhumant communities in the mountains I call home in north-west Italy; understanding and retrieving what Indigenous scholar and biologist Robin Wall Kimmerer has called ceremonies of practical reverence, that is site-specific acts that root people in place and sanctify their relationship to land and other fellow beings.