From September to November 2025, I was one of six early-career artists that worked with Left Bank and local Leeds communities to explore creativity, sustainability and our relationship with the natural world. Each artist chose an element — Earth, Water, Light, Shadow, or Time — as inspiration, and together with participants we created new artworks through a series of free public workshops.
Throughout the Elements of Nature workshop series, I guided participants through experiments in intuitive photography, cyanotype printing and mapping. In the first workshop, participants were invited to slow down, observe their surroundings and engage creatively with both natural and built environments. Through processes of walking and noticing, I encouraged curiosity and reflection on the overlooked details that shape everyday experience. The second workshop invited participants to turn inward, re-examining their personal phone archives to uncover overlooked moments and mundane details. By translating these digital memories into cyanotype prints, participants reconnected with the everyday beauty of their lived experiences, exploring how light, time and recollection intertwine.
The final piece, titled Cyanotype Collection: Mapping Light and Memory, represents a collective archive of these explorations. By combining photographs, hand-drawn maps and natural materials through the cyanotype process, the work captures traces of individual journeys and shared moments of attention. Framed within 120 slide film, the collection invites viewers to engage with light, time and memory to rediscover the beauty found in the act of noticing.
