Outdoor Culture

and started outdoor culture, a new company that connects people with the landscape through the arts, learning and play.

I undertake creative production and project management with a range of clients and partners, specialising in bridging the arts and environment sectors. My aim is always to create brilliant new reasons for all kinds of people to spend time outside of buildings. Have a look at my current projects for examples.

As a producer, I am interested in how human artifice can draw upon, reflect and locate itself within the wider ‘natural’ world of which we are a product. As indoor culture takes us further and further away from the land that sustain us, so there is a corresponding opportunity to reach out with purpose and imagination for the realities beyond our walls; to measure ourselves against the non-human; to experience and communicate our place in the world. We are still wild creatures.

For me, the outdoors is a temple and a playground. If I don’t get out for a walk in the woods and the fields every few days, I get fidgety and unhappy. I can’t always predict what it is that I’ll get out of the experience, but I always return home calm and uplifted – whether by some tiny flower, a sweeping vista or just the intrinsic pleasure of fresh air and exercise. Mountains and overnight trips magnify the effects. Research suggests that children who spend time in green spaces are better able to concentrate once back indoors: it is the same for me.

It is my belief that many of the UK’s health and social problems are being worsened by our indoor lifestyle, which has disconnected us from food production, wildlife and one another. Away from our cars and buildings, the UK is a beautiful and uncrowded country. My work is to help people discover their own wildness and our common heritage through all the tools that culture in the outdoors can offer.

I come to outdoor culture with 10 years of professional experience in arts and learning, gained through the Asian Music Circuit, Youth Music, Creative Partnerships and the Arts Council. I am a musician and a hill-walker, based in the Chilterns AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) in Buckinghamshire, South East England.