Growing up in the performing arts sectors, I have seen theatre professionals shipping projects and plays every year, touring them and closing them for good. What I liked the most while observing the process were the conversations, the questions they asked to one another and the reflection.
With One Question Comes A Great Story - A Story of Change - A Story of Transformation.
Here are some of the questions I asked myself over the years:
- Why do people consume so much when they know that the rest of the world is in a pitiful state?
- How can design support
- What is the role of designers in supporting the transition towards a circular economy?
- What is the role of local government in supporting citizens in their sustainable journey?
- What is the role of grassroots communities in supporting people in reducing their carbon footprint?
- What is the effectiveness of a community-based approach in raising awareness about sexual violence in a set community?
- What can we do better to raise awareness about sexual violence in Black Asian and Minority Ethnic Communities?
- What can we do better as a communicate to support female survivors in both their recovery journey and creative paths?
My work is driven by questions that one seeks to answer through projects. I am not attached to specific roles and professional affiliations. I am attached to projects and their delivery.
Find below some of the projects I worked on over the year.
1991 - 2005 I acted in short movie production and theatre plays in various venues as a child actor. Major works include Mefiez Vous de La Pierre a Barbe written and directed by Ahmed Madani with the Madani Compagnie which toured at the Festival of Avignon, Theatre de La Tempete, Theatre de La Villette and in venues in Mantes La Jolie. The main question explored through the play was - what happens when you bring second generation immigrant children from various socio-economic background together to deliver a play about the Rwandese Genocide? I was also involved in a second production La Madani Compagnie was a Midsummer of a Night Dream by Shakespeare directed by Ahmed Madani.
2006 - I moved to the UK and my main project was to master the english language. I moved to Northampton and worked my way through in various capacity until I was able to complete a test to prove my english literacy, speaking and listening skills in order to start my undergraduate studies at the University of Northampton.
2007-2009 - I started my marketing studies at the University of Northampton. The main question I wanted to explore: "Why do people consume so much knowing that the rest of the world is in a pitiful state?" Being from a mixed background, stories of colonisation and decolonisation as well as poverty filled our home, so I could never quite understand the drive for more in my counterparts. At the University of Northampton, I led on project trying to influence management to include as part of the curriculum Sustainable Marketing. At the time, sustainable marketing was yet to become a hot topic, and so our proposal was rejected. It was worth trying. I also led and supported a student-led project called Lost in Translation which won the volunteering student project of the year.
2009-2010 - At the request of my father, I returned in France for a placement year at Le Theatre de La Tempete under the artistic direction of Philippe Adrien as a PR and Communication Assistant. I also worked with Eugenie Bitty to deliver an exhibition for Ivoirian consulate and embassy members at La Maison Houphouet Boigny in Paris celebrating Ivorian culture. That particular year, I visited Ivory Coast and developed relationships with visual artists such as Aboudia and Mr Maé.
2011-2012 After returning to the UK and completing my last year of studies, I started a Mdes Design for Sustainability at Cranfield. I wanted to understand how can design support the transition towards a sustainable system of consumption and production. Marketing was not sufficient in my reflection, I needed to understand how products and services are made. I got involved in a group project aimed to develop a tool to measure sustainable behaviour change in primary schools. The master thesis with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation aimed to answer the following question: What is the role of designers in facilitating the transition towards a circular economy for which I interviewed representative of large organisation such as B&Q, Cisco, and Ikea as well as experts within the field. They all pointed out that ultimately it was in the hand of the consumer to change their behaviour. After this experience, I decided to focus my attention to grassroots entity and local government in driving change. I was also elected as a green officer on the campus that particular year.
2012-2014 I moved in Leicester. I joined Transition Leicester as a steering group members and supported Footpaths Leicester with facilitating an 8-week course about carbon footprint reduction. I also designed and delivered two workshops about the ethics of money, coordinated Positive Money local Leicester group and run a weekly meeting called Enlightened Thursday. I was working as a customer insight analyst for Melton Borough Council supporting project such as Sure Start and the Universal Credit Pilot. At the time the main question I wanted to answer was: what is the role of local government in supporting behaviour change in citizen? and what is the role of grassroot communities in supporting change? With Footpaths at the time, we started to discuss repair and its role in supporting the transition towards a sustainable system of consumption and production. I was desperate to return to academia to start a doctorate. I started Marlefeed or various iterations of the blog around that particular period.
2014 - 2019 - I started a doctorate in Design for Sustainability asking the question what are the factors influencing prosumers' repair propensity. I also designed and delivered the Green Festival of Making and Mending welcoming 600 people and an 100 volunteers in 2015. I also launched and directed Leicester Fixers with the delivery of repair events and the Leicestershire Outreach Programme. I supported small start-ups such as the Crop Club ad CBD Oil Supply. I delivered a wedding in Paris from the UK with 150 people attending.
2019 Two month prior to submitting my thesis for my viva, I completed a training in asset based community development with Cormac Russell. The experience led me to change the language in my thesis from consumer to prosumer as a mean to highlight the dual nature of a person as both a producer and consumer. Through writing the thesis, i started to reflect on the impacts of poor design on women who had neither the skills nor the financial resources to repair broken items. At that point, I thought that if I were to be employed, I needed to use my skills for possibly one of the worst form of violence. Luckily, a job opening appeared in Leicester that will make the best use of my research skills and my training in asset based community development. Quetzal, a charity supporting female survivors from childhood sexual abuse were looking for a professional with knowledge in asset based community development. It was an ideal job, part-time, 20 minutes with the bicycle from my home and with a trauma-informed organisation. I started to understand the impacts of trauma at both a relational and personal level in the way you achieve the goal as I looked deeper in the topic while preparing from my interview and my viva which happened in the same month. It became clearer to me at that point that my adverse childhood experiences as mixed-race young female had tremendous impacts on my mental health, especially during my doctorate as I felt that I was never good enough. After the climax of receiving my doctorate with minor correction from Loughborough University and my first week at my job where I learnt what is to be a trauma-informed organisation and what is trauma, I had a major withdrawal which led me to write a 8 page long letter to the university to share my experience as a mixed-raced doctoral student. It led eventually to a year of conversation and silence from the university which eventually reawaken when the images of a police officer killing George Floyds appeared. In 2019, as I started to navigate through South Asian Communities in Leicester, I was lucky to be clinically supervised to better understand how the reactions of others impacted on my sense of self and to become more self-assured as my worth as an academic and human-being. I also closed the Leicestershire Community Outreach Programme and went to Berlin for the FixFest.
In 2020, still at Quetzal, I wrote briefs, terms of reference, job description to recruit a team of collaborators to support the delivery of an evaluation for the project, a new brand image, a website, short movies, counselling to south asian female survivors, a self-help guide, and a series of events and communication strategy. In 2020, we delivered the brand new website for Quetzal with the self-help guide and delivered trainings and events to various partners. I also had through the pandemic conversation with Kajal Nisha Patel from Lightseekers about the impacts of poor mental health on day-to-day lives, the tools to support mental health and more. I also started conversation with Eugenie Bitty Arts about collaborating on the delivery of a new exhibition.
In 2021, I became managing director for Lightseekers and worked on the design and delivery of Ways to Wellbeing Programme. I also supported with the delivery of a group exhibition for Eugenie Bitty Arts. I also wrote and delivered Leicester Fixers brand new website and worked with others on our business model. At Quetzal, I collaborated with Nikhil Mistry to deliver the stories of change short movies and social media clips, organised an delivered a webinar event sharing all that we've learnt so far as well as curated and organised exhibition called Quetzal Stories of Change. I also returned to France and directed my father funeral with the support of all my family, a magnificent man of theatre - We ensured to combine his love of theatre, music, singing, beautiful food, arts and dreams together with his friends and family and we made it a wonderful day. He asked me that he wanted for the end that I'd be his voice, that my brother read a text and that he'd be a sunny day. I can say that all his wishes came true. While in France, my love for theatre, psychoanalysis, dreams grew and had the chance to do further exploration on the question through collaborative work with partners. Who knows what will come next! In 2021, I also delivered a presentation in Sweden about my research and work about repair.
Drip Drip Drip. More projects. There are a few others that are in the soup as we speak. Soon to appear on Marlefeed