This term has helped me understand more clearly not only what I am interested in, but also how I work and why. Across my projects, plants have remained the central theme in my practice. More specifically, I am interested in the invisible parts of plant life: forms, structures, and processes that often go unnoticed, such as roots, scars, knots, growth patterns, and subtle signs. I approach plants as living bodies that can reveal hidden relationships between resilience and environment.

My inspiration usually begins with field observation and sketching. Going outside, observing directly, and making quick drawings from life have been an important starting point for me. These processes allow me to add small details and personal feelings that photography alone might flatten or overlook. Sketching, in particular, slows down my attention and helps me form a more intimate relationship with what I am looking at. It is often through drawing that I begin to identify shapes, textures, and structures that later develop into wider visual or spatial ideas.

One example of this is BURLS, which developed directly from my earlier observation and sketching of plane trees along the streets of the East Acton community. I became particularly interested in the swollen, knotted growth produced by repeated cutting. These early sketches did not simply document what I saw, but helped me isolate specific visual and material qualities that later became central to the project. Alongside observation and sketching, I also experimented more with writing, photo editing, and graphic composition. Writing allowed me to reflect on plant forms in a more personal and interpretive way

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After using quick observation and sketching to find an initial direction, I usually move into a second stage of desktop research and brainstorming. For this, I often use Figma whiteboards to collect references, visual materials, texts, and related case studies. This helps me map out different possible directions and identify where a broader issue or argument might sit within the work.

For example, starting from street trees, I extended my research towards pollarding and the role of urban tree management within city planning. From there, I moved further into questions of tree equity and the unequal distribution of environmental resources, which led me to the paradox of green. This became the research focus and outcome direction for my project Uneven Green in elective Capital Shadow.

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Sometimes, material gathered through field trips can also become part of the final outcome itself, rather than remaining only as research documentation. This might include photographs, videos, sound, or even physical materials collected on site. In my elective Across RCA, for example, we explored waste in the River Thames and focused on the afterlife of materials once they enter the river. As part of this project, some of the waste we collected during the field trip was directly incorporated into the final installation, while the visual material we recorded on site was used to produce a supplementary video. This experience made me realise that fieldwork in my practice can function in multiple ways: as observation, as documentation, as research material, and sometimes as the work itself.

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The material for the 1-minute video practice also came from video footage that I recorded during the Orchid Festival at Kew Gardens.

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At the same time, I have remained strongly interested in handmaking and material exploration. Throughout the term, I kept trying to move towards physical installation and three-dimensional work. I am drawn to materials because they allow ideas to be tested through touch and form. Making by hand is important in my practice because it creates a more bodily relationship to the work. It also allows me to discover unexpected meanings through process rather than simply illustrating a concept that is already fixed.

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This became especially important in projects where I wanted to translate plant life into a more tactile language. In this sense, making is a method of translation: it allows me to move from direct observation into an embodied and spatial response. I often find that once I begin building something by hand, the work starts to reveal meanings that were not fully clear at the research stage.

Looking back on this term, I can see that my practice is shaped by movement between research and making. I often begin with field observation and sketching, then develop the work further through desktop research, writing, editing, and collecting references. From there, I test how these ideas can be transformed into printed, visual, or material outcomes. What connects these methods is my ongoing interest in the invisible parts of plant life and in how overlooked natural forms can open up wider questions about environment, care, inequality, and transformation.

This term has also made me realise that I do not want my work to remain only at the level of documentation or image-making. Although research, writing, and graphic have become increasingly important parts of my process, I am still most interested in how these can extend into physical space. Moving forward, I want to continue developing a practice that combines observation, research, and material experimentation, so that my work can move across image, text, and installation.

I have become more aware that what drives my practice is not only an interest in plants themselves, but also a desire to help people shift their perspective and notice the wider world through them. Paying attention to the plants around us, even the smallest or most ordinary ones, can be a way of reconnecting with nature. I am interested in the survival strategies, resilience, and quiet intelligence of plant life, and in how these might offer forms of reflection or inspiration for human life, an idea that also connects to Michael Marder’s writing on plant wisdom and “plant-thinking.” In this sense, my work is also connected to broader questions of environment, care, and the future. Just as choosing a future requires emotional investment, I think environmental awareness also needs to be driven by feeling, not only by information. What I can do through my practice may be limited, but I hope to create moments of beauty, attention, and connection that invite people to look more closely and feel differently.