One of a selection of postcard comics I created for my final MA project at Falmouth University this year. Each postcard is based on a conversation I had at Loveland - a community growing project in Penryn, Cornwall - with fellow volunteers about weeds.

This one is from a conversation with Liz - lead flower grower at Loveland - who spoke with me generously about weeds during a volunteering session in late May (2023). When I first asked Liz how she feels about weeds, she responded by describing her frustration with how so many people are so disconnected from farming, and yet are often quick to blame farmers for the problems caused by our agricultural systems - when farmers are mostly struggling to make ends meet, doing what they have to do to survive.

I realised then that my positive interest in weeds could be construed as a suggestion that anyone working hard to protect their cultivated plants from weeds is in the wrong. Liz reminded me of how critical it is to treat this subject with sensitivity and nuance; to balance my interest in weeds as a concept with an understanding of how weeds do present real problems - particularly for farmers and, by extension, all of us.

One of a selection of postcard comics I created for my final MA project at Falmouth University this year (2023). Each postcard is based on a conversation I had at Loveland - a community growing project in Penryn, Cornwall - with fellow volunteers about weeds.

This postcard is a response to two different conversations about ragwort, one day after the next, at Loveland - first with the medicine garden team, and then with the Saturday volunteer crew. Loveland was alight with ragwort in the summer of 2023 and there was debate over whether or not it needed to be removed. The 1959 Weeds Act and the 2003 Ragwort Control Act stipulate that ragwort is an “injurious weed” which, because it is poisonous to livestock, must be prevented from spreading. However, recent studies have suggested that the actual risk posed to livestock is minimal, and is far outweighed by the benefits to insect life; ragwort has been found to support twice as many insects than recommended pollinator-friendly “wild flowers”. The cinnabar moth, in particular, is almost entirely dependent upon ragwort as a food source.

While Loveland is dedicated to bolstering biodiversity through agro-ecological land management, ragwort’s legal status is a worry. Loveland exists on land that is currently on a short term lease; any suggestion that the land has been mismanaged, for instance, by allowing ragwort to grow extensively, could result in the denial of a lease extension.

One of a set of postcard comics I made for my final MA project at Falmouth University in summer 2023. Each postcard is a response to a conversation I had at Loveland - a community growing project in Penryn, Cornwall - with fellow volunteers about weeds.

This one is based on a conversation with John, a committed Loveland volunteer and Belmont garden volunteer (on Falmouth University campus). This conversation took place at Belmont, not at Loveland, and so it is a weed itself - straying outside the project’s bounds.

When John told me (at Loveland) that they are growing callaloo at Belmont, I asked if I could come and see it. I had just been reading about amaranth, and was fascinated by its extremely varied status from species to species, and place to place. There are 95 accepted species of Amaranthus, with a native range extending across most of the world, and all of them (it seems) are edible. However, only about 12 varieties are cultivated as food or ornamentals, and the rest are commonly treated as weeds (collectively known as “pigweed”).

Callaloo is one cultivated type - although in some Caribbean countries, “callaloo” is the name of a dish, not a plant, and it is not always made from amaranth leaves. And here in the U.K. ‘amaranth’ seeds (it’s not clear which species of amaranth) are becoming increasingly popular as a nutrient-dense super food, like quinoa (with possibly the same detrimental effects on the communities growing it for whom it is a subsistence food).

Palmer Amaranth - “King of the Supwerweeds” - on the other hand, is wreaking havoc on farms across the United States. Resistant to almost all herbicides, and armed with deep tap roots, speedy growth, and a seed-production rate in the hundreds of thousands; palmer amaranth can take out 80-90% of a crop yield if left unchecked. The question “why not eat it?” has been raised, and attempts to answer it suggest that the real problem lies not with the weed but with the layered complexities of industrial agriculture.

A selection of portraits drawn from life of volunteers at Loveland - a community growing project I volunteered at while an MA student at Falmouth, around which all of my MA work came to revolve (see the other “Loveland’s Weeds” posts).

All of the drawings are coloured pencil over a gouache wash, and they each took about 20-30 minutes.

A selection of illustrations documenting the protest held outside (and inside!) the oil giant Shell’s AGM at the Methodist Central Hall, London, in May 2022. The protests delayed the AGM by three hours.

The drawings are based on sketches on site and photographs.

A handful of imagined portraits for Beyond Trafficking and Slavery (a long-running project by openDemocracy) to accompany a series of testimonies from children, and their families, living in Ciudad Juárez, on the US-Mexico border. The children were all caught crossing into the US, either to pursue personal aspirations or to smuggle people, and are now receiving restorative justice services from the NGO Derechos Humanos Integrales en Acción.

The portraits were created to provide extra personalisation for each testimony, while protecting the identity of the speaker (their names have also been changed). They were drawn partly from basic descriptions of each person and partly from what my imagination conjured while reading their testimonies.

To read the testimonies - all published in May 2022 - please click here.

Cover illustration for openDemocracy’s Annual Report, 2021-22.

The illustration collages together images that speak to the different facets of openDemocracy’s work over that year. From investigating the ‘conversion therapy’ treatments targeting LGBTQ+ people in Costa Rica, Argentina and the United States, to revealing the network of surveillance oil giant BP employed to monitor the activities of climate activists.

Cover illustration for Byline Times June 2021 issue, to accompany the headline story - a review of the independent panel report on the unsolved murder of private detective Daniel Morgan.

An illustration to accompany Anthony Barnett’s story for Byline Times, in which he imagines a near-future for Britain under Boris Johnson as a tyrannical monarch.

The illustration references the iconography of Soviet propaganda posters and Francisco de Goya’s ‘The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters’, from his disturbing, satirical aquatint series Los Caprichos (1797-1799).

The story and illustration were first published in Byline Times’ May 2021 print issue, and then published online on 17th June 2021. You can read the story on Byline Times’ website here.

The cover illustration and one article illustration for Beyond Trafficking and Slavery’s (openDemocracy) debate on philanthrocapitalism - ‘How has philanthrocapitalism helped or harmed the anti-trafficking movement?’

The debate was published as a series of articles on the Beyond Trafficking and Slavery website across January and February 2021. You can read the debate in full here.

The illustrations visualise the irony at the heart of philanthrocapitalism: the exploitative practices behind the corporate profits channelled into philanthropic projects, with a mix of genuinely beneficial and ultimately pointless or even detrimental results.

Portraits of friends drawn via zoom at a time when we couldn’t meet in person. The drawings are based on sketches, screenshots and screen recordings taken during zoom calls.

Illustration for the promotional materials for the ‘Chasing Slavery: The Persistence of Forced Labor in the Southwest’ conference at Texas State University in October 2019.

The illustration combines images of various forms of labour - such as housekeeping, fishing, construction - in which forceful conditions are prevalent, into one single-line drawing filling the shape of the southwest region of North America.

One of the five comics I made as part of a residency at the New Scriptorium, a dedicated artists and writers’ bothy in the grounds of Arbroath Abbey.

The comics are based on conversations I shared with Arbroath locals about the significance of the fishing industry to the area: its rich heritage, its vibrant but challenged present, and the promises and vulnerabilities of its future.

With Tommy and Benji Yule, father and son creel fishers. Creel fishing is the main type of commercial fishing in Arbroath, after the collapse (or destruction) of the local white fishing industry across the late 1980s into the early 2000s. The lobster and crab populations in the waters around Arbroath are currently stable, however there are concerns that populations may drastically decline soon as a result of overfishing. There is no quantity quota on most species of shellfish in Scotland. Lobsters and crabs just have to be of a minimum size, which theoretically protects the juvenile populations - but this seems to be insufficient. The Arbroath and Montrose Static Gear Association, who represent local creel fishers, are urging the Scottish government’s Marine Directorate to introduce a quantitative quota for the long term benefit of the local creel fishing industry. Bob Teviotdale, Chair of the AMSGA, commented that the Marine Directorate were not unsupportive of a quota like this, but do not know how they would enforce it.

The man on the harbour wall is Harry Simpson - former owner of Mackay Boatbuilders, the last boatyard in Arbroath and one of the few remaining in Scotland with the expertise to restore historic wooden vessels.