Light Sleeper Studio

I am a queer artist, writer and researcher living in far west Kernow (Cornwall). I work with people, community groups, charities and businesses to create projects that help tell the stories of those most often unheard. My practice spans multiple mediums including illustration, filmmaking and writing, and is primarily engaged with people’s experiences of identity and emotions, particularly gender and sexuality. I am also very passionate about joy, empowerment, transparency and righteous anger, making sure the projects I work on feel good for the people taking part in them.

Light Sleeper Studio is a name I’ve been using since I was in high school, when I was making (angry teenage) feminist art, secluding myself in the art room at lunch, studying philosophy and ethics, convinced there were definitely more ways to do the type of work I wanted to do than I was being shown. Light Sleeper because I worry, Studio because I channel that energy to create change.

My work is expansive in method and responsive in form. I’ve painted community designed murals, co-created collaborative films, written manifestos, and illustrated toolkits. I don’t believe that one size fits all, different stories require different mediums, and I get genuinely excited about being challenged by that.

Alongside my creative practice, I am a researcher with a life long fascination of identity and the ways we interact with and through it. I am currently completing a PhD Studentship in Politics at the University of Exeter’s Cornwall campus, researching emotion and knowledge in local decision making, focusing on the ways we work with people with ‘lived experience’.

Professionally, I have worked as a content creator and researcher for the diversity and inclusion organisation, Brew People, where we worked a lot with neurodiversity and race in the workplace. I have worked as Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Officer turned Lived Experience Programme Manager at disAbility Cornwall, where I worked with a host of different people and organisations to co-create and facilitate the Cornwall Lived Experience Partnership. During my role, I also worked with organisations such as Screen Cornwall, Kresen Kernow and Falmouth University to create film work and exhibitions centring the lived experience of Disabled people in Cornwall. I founded and have since passed forward the Penwith Queer Collective, which I started when I moved back to Cornwall and needed to find friends. I have been commissioned by Cornwall 365, disAbility Cornwall, WILD Young Parents, Goldfinch, Ekphriasis, Bristol Institute of Learning and Teaching to create art and writing. I have also given talks and workshops at University of Exeter, Falmouth University, Eden Project University Centre and various Equity, Diversity and Inclusion conferences and events.

When I’m not working, you can find me in the sea, running around with my little whippet, eating a sweet treat or lapping up a new film at my local independent filmhouse.

Light Sleeper Studio is covered by Professional Indemnity Insurance, Public Liability Insurance and can be employed on a Freelance basis.

If you’d like to work together, head on over to the Let’s Collaborate page, I’d love to hear from you.