I am a pragmatist ethnographer who translates between artistic and social science research in the 'built environment'. Developing from my visual arts background I'm interested in the way artists, planners and arts professionals work together (or could do) and how the forms of knowledge at play can be better accounted for in scholarship, and utilised in practice.

To account for the continuity of human and non-human relations my methodology is informed by making sculpture (as an undergraduate at art school) and also classical and feminist pragmatism and scholarly kin. Funded by the AHRC and the Swedish Research Council, I have undertaken fieldwork in the UK and Sweden and published on urban and rural planning, landscape, community development and art studies.

At Northumbria University I am Senior Lecturer in Material Culture and Programme Leader of MA Creative and Cultural Industries Management. Before joining NU I held research posts at Valand Academy (University of Gothenburg) and Newcastle University. And I have also been Research Fellow at Moore Institute, National University of Ireland, Galway; and Arts Business and Science Fellow of Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart.

Before academia I worked in the arts with particular interest in the role of art in community oriented and artist-led practice. As an arts professional my roles included: Programme Director of Artists Newsletter (now a-n The Artists Information Company), Executive Director of Waygood Gallery & Studios (now BALTIC 39), Development Manager of Forma Arts & Media and Co Director of Midwest; as well as working with local authorities, arts councils, housing associations, environment agencies and arts organisations as an independent consultant-commissioner.