Bibliography

I was raised in a Caribbean Diaspora in the Netherlands and moved to London in my early 20s to study, do my PhD at Goldsmiths and eventually work as a lecturer at Birkbeck, University of London. I am back in the Netherlands now and based in Amsterdam where I teach and conduct my research. After spending 20 years in the university as institution, and the last 3 years at Erasmus University Rotterdam, I recently made the decision to leave academia and have the freedom to develop my work more artistically. Currently, I am based at the Sandberg Institute at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam where I convene the Gender and Sexuality seminars on the MA Critical Studies. 

My research has always centred around the materiality of bodies as socio-historic and cultural sites of power, transformation and rupture. I am deeply interested in sensory research and expression that connects haptic engagement, theoretical speculation and more personal reflection - through which sense, sense-making and sensation are intimately entangled. I am particularly interested in moments of collapse and ruination, the times when life seems to fall apart and we come undone, which I explore and express through various modes of writing (theory, reflection, fabulation) and the creation and performance of wearable sculpture. Here I am looking for the glimmers of more liveable life, being-together otherwise, to be found in the promises of the rubble and what remains. This practice has emerged from a long-standing interest and interrogation into what it means to be human, what it means to live on the edges of such an ontology and the more liveable futures that reside in its cracks and shadows - with particular attention to the nonhuman, not-quite-human and more-than-human. 

I completed a PhD in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, in 2012, after studying Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. Through my interest in gender and sexuality studies I left Philosophy as a discipline and made my way into the more transdisciplinary fields of queer and feminist theory, new materialisms and black studies. My research into bodies and their materialities has resulted in my book Materialities of Sex in a Time of HIV: The Promise of Vaginal Microbicides and a range of articles published in Feminist Review, Journal of Science and Technology Studies, Journal of Visual Cultures, philoSOPHIA and more.

Alongside and throughout my academic career I worked as a corsetier and costumer with my own brand in custom design for over 10 years. Eventually I decided to stop working on commission and explore textiles and corseting techniques as an art practice and mode of practice research. An exploration that eventually resulted in my departure from the university.

This website houses my different writings, projects and artistic engagements.