I'm an artist film-maker who uses a process-based dialogic methodology informed by écriture féminine to explore the interrelationship between bodies and forgotten, liminal spaces framed around subjectivity, place and memory, embodiment and technological mediation, from posthuman feminist perspectives. Working with photochemcial and digital film, including 360, my current research centres on watery places such as rivers, estuaries and coastal zones.

I collaborate with the film-maker and sound artist, Dr Stuart Moore, to explore the interplay in landscape film-making between place and memory. Our ethical, dialogic practice embraces environmental themes and histories at the intersection of post-industrial landscape and climate emergency; an additional strand investigates the impacts of British post-colonialism in Cyprus through the lens of children whose fathers served with the RAF on the island during the Cold War. Our current commission for Sea for Yourself, the creative programme for the Plymouth Sound National Marine Park, includes a 360 film, The History of Now, made with a local school and members of the community, a one-minute 35mm film poem, King Tide, and curation of an exhibition linked to the life of TE Lawrence ('Lawrence of Arabia') while he was stationed at RAF Mount Batten from 1929 onwards.

Noted for my avant-garde and experimental materialist works (O'Pray, 1993, 1996; Rees, 2011; Bendazzi, 2015, Knowles, 2017) and feminist film-making (Curtis, 1996, 2007; Byrne, 1999; Hatfield, 2006; Kitowski, 2015; Atkinson, 2025), my films are exhibited internationally in galleries, festivals, public spaces and touring programmes and include commissions from the Arts Council, the British Film Institute, the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. My moving image artworks are held in many archives and collections, including the BFI National Archive.

I gained my PhD in 2015 for a thesis examining gender and women's creative practice in direct animation. I publish widely on film-making, with extended essays on the British avant-garde artist Annabel Nicolson's film performance, Reel Time, and the direct animation practice of Orcadian film poet Margaret Tait. As a curator of artists' moving image, programmes include Bodies of Water for the Power of the Sea exhibition (2014, RWA, Bristol), Passing Through for the British Art Show 9 (2022, Plymouth), and Sound Signatures (2023, Mayes Creative and CineStar).

At University of Plymouth, I held an academic post until August 2025, when I was appointed Honorary Senior Research Fellow. I continue to lead creative projects focused on place and am a Member of the Marine Institute Strategy Team. Prior to August 2025, I supervised artists’ PhD projects and was Chair of the School of Art, Design and Architecture ethics panel on the Research Ethics and Integrity Committee, in addition to being Early Career Research Lead for the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business, and a member of the faculty Research Committee. As ECR Lead, I initiated and co-ordinated a programme of support initiatives, opportunities, and training, including establishing a faculty ECR Network, working in partnership with senior academic staff, ECRs and members of university professional services and the British Academy ECR Network. I convened the About Place ECR practice research symposium (2023, with Dr Mary Pearson) and the ECR Away Day (2024, with Dr Núria Bonnet).

British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS, Special Interest Groups: Essay Film, and Practice Research)
Fellowship, Advance HE (FHEA)

Academic reviewer: Screenworks, the online publication of practice research in film and screen media, Digital Cultures Research Centre, University of the West of England, Bristol (2018 to date), and Photographies journal, Taylor and Francis (from 2023)

Media Innovation Network steering group (University of Plymouth representative, 2015–17)
Centre for Moving Image Research (CMIR) UWE, Bristol (affiliate, 2014–17)
Sweet FA partnership between Plymouth Arts Centre, Moving Image Arts (MIA) research, and Sundog Media; the Sweet FA initiative introduced and investigated film-making and moving image in contemporary visual arts (University of Plymouth representative and co-founder, 2013–15)
Barefoot: the Plymouth Arts Education Partnership Agency, responsible for artists' residencies in schools, artists' projects with schools, and other creative initiatives with schools, children and young people in the Plymouth area (University of Plymouth board member, 2009–10)
Parsian Multimedia, a not-for-profit Iranian refugee cultural production group, working in collaboration and partnership with displaced communities in Plymouth and south west Britain; supported by AviDVital, Diverse Arts, and Refugees First, Plymouth (advisor, 2008–09)
decibel, Arts Council England South West: decibel was launched by the Arts Council in 2003 to raise the profile of under-represented BAME (black and minority ethnic) artists via a professional mentoring programme (creative advisor, 2005–06)

1990s:
South West Media Development Agency (SWMDA, replaced South West Arts Film and Video) board member and company director
Arts Council and Channel 4 member of Animate Awards selection and interview panels
The Celtic Film and Television Festival Cornish selection jury and curator of Celtic animation programme from film-makers in Kernow
Cornwall Media Resource management committee, Redruth (South West Arts representative)
Cinema 100 the body that developed and presented the UK-wide programme of activities and events to celebrate 100 years of cinema in 1995 – member of Plymouth steering committee
Eastern Arts Film and Video production board – advisory member and film funding selection committee
South West Arts film and video production awards – member of funding selection panel

Awarded
Anna Walker (2016) for a PhD thesis entitled, 'In and Out of Memory: Exploring the Tension between Remembering and Forgetting When Recalling 9/11, a Traumatic Event'

Claudia Pilsl (2020) for a PhD thesis entitled, 'Photography and Its Contribution to the Understanding of Digital Porosity'

Margaret Hart (2020) for a PhD thesis entitled, 'Collage in the Posthuman Era: Gender and Becoming'

Charlotte Reardon (2020) for a ResM thesis entitled, 'Experiments in Materiality and Representation: The London Film-Makers' Cooperative 1968–1979'

Lucietta Williams (2021) for a PhD thesis entitled, 'Lens-less capture and emerging moving imaging technologies: An investigation into the ways in which digital pinhole capture and advances in lens-less imaging in computational photography may affect the form and content of moving images'

Karen Abadie (2023) for a PhD thesis entitled, 'Humanity Undone: A Practice led Enquiry into Self-Injury'

Shaikha Almehana (2023) for a PhD thesis entitled, 'An Awakening Within: Islamic Tradition and Innovation in a Contemporary Kuwaiti Woman's Painting Practice'

Raul Alvarez (2024) for a PhD thesis entitled, 'Film Here Now: Daily Filmmaking and the Path to Well-Being'

Jennifer Bradbury-Crowther (2024) for a PhD thesis entitled, 'And the Skylarks Called Out Your Name: Posthuman Encounters with Loss through Embracing the More-than-human World'

Rachael Allain (2025) for a PhD thesis entitled, 'Above and Below the Horizon: A Practice-Led Investigation into Liminal Thresholds of Bodies of Water’

Livia Daza-Paris (2026) for a PhD thesis entitled, 'All Life as Witness: Developing a mode of investigation into political disappearance in 1960s Venezuela reframed by Skinner Releasing and Indigenous knowledge'