Languages and Literature, Nottingham Trent University
Thesis title:
My PhD research project investigates the creative and aesthetic possibilities of how the complex multi-scalar relations between humans, algae and planetary health can be explored in contemporary poetry. My research draws on algae’s vast and microscopic scales, from minute plankton in the ocean to their role in deep time and present-day planetary systems. My thesis’s creative and critical components include literary analysis of poetry (Hymas 2020; Watts 2020; Spahr 2025), poetic writing and practice research with marine scientists. Motivated by Solnick’s (2016) assertion that poetry must find ‘new ways of thinking about unfamiliar spatial and temporal scales, about how we approach the metaphors and discourses of the sciences,’ my practice research examines the interplay between different representations of algae across the poetry and science spectrum. The cross-disciplinary nature of my project explores what poetic perspectives might emerge and what new ecologies of practice can be built through collaboration across poetry and marine science.
'Telephone Exchange' and 'Tape Relay System', Bunker: Stories and Poems from a Nuclear Age, Nottingham: Five Leaves Press, Ed. Sarah Jackson & Daniel Cordel, 2024.
'Listening with Eunice', Map Magazine: #66 Tendencies - A Year of Carte Blanche & Other Chimeras, Ed. Daniela Cascella, 2022.
'Postnatural Supernatural', The Contemporary Journal: Emergence and Emergency, Ed. Canan Batur, 2022.
'Earthbnb' APRIA Journal, Digital Narrations: Fails and Errors, 2022.
'Air Morphologies', Wild Alchemy Journal: Air Edition, Ed. Jemma Foster, 2022.
'Falling Birds', Reliquiae Vol 8 No 2, Eds. Autumn Richardson & Richard Skelton, 2020.
'Holding the Herbarium' MAI Journal, Issue Four: The Mattering of Methods, Eds. Rebecca Coleman, Tara Page, Helen Palmer, 2019.
'A Human Offer of Recognition', Alterity Five: On Consciousness, Ed. Richard Skelton, Nov, 2019.
'with-out-sound', Something Other, Fifth Chapter, On Silences and Noise, Eds. Mary Paterson, Maddy Costa, Diana Damian Martin, 2018.30 Jul 2025, Presentation, 'Algae Poetics: practice research with poetry and marine science', Hydropoetry in Practice, Poetics Research Centre at Royal Holloway University of London, UK.
7 May 2025, Presentation, 'Algae Ecologies', Centre for Expanded Poetics, Department of English, Concordia University, Montréal, Canada.
7-10 May 2025, Paper, 'Synaesthesia and sensory scaling in Carol Watts’s poem ‘Kelptown’, Uncommon Senses V: Sensing the Social, the Environmental, and Across the Arts and Sciences, Concordia University, Montréal, Canada.
5-6 Sep 2024, Paper, 'Multi-sensory soundings in Carol Watt's Kelptown', Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, UK and Ireland (ASLE-UKI) Biennial Postgraduate Conference, Edinburgh Environmental Humanities Network, University of Edinburgh, UK.
28-29 Aug 2024, Presentation and screening, 'Hydromancy' Flowing Image Conference, University of Southampton, UK.
29 May 2024, Paper, 'Algal perspectives across poetry and science' Scottish Association of Marine Science, Seminar Series, Oban, Scotland, UK.
10-12 Apr 2024, Presentation, 'Fieldwork: practice research across poetry and science', International Conference of Three Societies on Literature and Science, University of Birmingham, UK.
28 Oct 2023, Paper, 'Fathoming microbial seas: scaling with algae across poetry and science' part of the Visions of Scale Panel, SLSA Alien Conference, Arizona State University, Phoenix, USA.
13 Feb 2023, Presentation, 'Spectres in Change: Site-Sensitive Art-Science Research in the Archipelago Sea', Goldsmiths University of London, UK.
14 Mar 2023, Lecture, 'Transmissions' Lecture Series, Sheffield University, UK.
3 May 2023, Presentation, 'Ecological Imaginaries', a research network development symposium in the School of Arts and Humanities at Nottingham Trent University, UK.
8 Jun 2023, Presentation, 'Translation in Remains' University of Angers, France.
15 Feb - 12 May 2024, Exhibition, Ways of Water, Millennium Gallery, Sheffield Museums.
3 Feb – 5 Mar 2023, Exhibition, Field Casting, Titanik Gallery Turku, Finland: an exhibition that draws together ongoing research with marine biologists working with algae at the Archipelago Research Institute in Finland, in partnership with Contemporary Art Archipelago (CAA).
The intersections of visual art, science and poetry.
The Centre for Art and Ecology, London
The Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA) & (SLSAeu)
The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE)
British Phycological Society (BPS)
The British Society of Literature for Science (BSLS)
Critical Poetics Research Group (NTU)
Environmental Humanities Network (Warwick)
Environmental Humanities Network (Edinburgh)
Nottingham Creative Writing Hub (NTU)
5 Oct 2022 - 16 Oct 2025 (ongoing) MA Art and Ecology, Goldsmiths University of London, Experimental Laboratory: Site-based workshop on poetry and human-more- than-human ecologies, in Deptford Creek in partnership with Creekside Discovery Centre.
23 Jun 2024 & 7 Sep 2025, Royal College of Art, London, Making and Unmaking a Meadow: Writing and listening workshop, Rebel Farm, Kent Downs National Park, organised by Jess Potter, RCA Photo and RCA Health and Care Research Cluster, London.
17-20 May 2024, Research Retreat, ‘Tidal Movements in Environmental Humanities’, Cromarty Arts Trust, Cromarty, Scotland. Organised and funded by Edinburgh University.
1 Mar - 1 May 2024, Specialist training, Field Course Module on the Marine Science Course at the Scottish Association of Marine Science, Oban, Scotland, UK.
1 May - 30 Aug 2024, Placement at the Scottish Association of Marine Science, Oban, Scotland, UK.
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