For as long as I can remember, I have been asking questions, looking beneath the surface, exploring life’s darker corners and challenging commonly held perceptions. I now weave my lines of enquiry and the fruits of my discoveries into  a variety of creative disciplines: my art, talks, blogs, book and teachings.

I started my career as an artist/art therapist working in prisons first in Germany and then in London as Arts Coordinator to Koestler Arts and founder of its Learning to Learn through the Arts scheme. My interest in the potentially devastating impact and cycle of crime, trauma, shame and punishment drove me to develop visual exercises to address common issues prisoners face that could help them to form new ways of seeing the world, their behaviour and themselves. I witnessed how creating art, talking and being listened to - without judgment - could unlock minds and inspire a process of wanting to change.

It was upon turning forty that I embarked on extensive research into my German roots. I had always felt an inexplicable and often debilitating sense of shame but even intensive efforts to uncover its source had failed to link it to my German family and a past inextricably enmeshed in the horrors of Nazism and the Second World War. Since then, terms such as ‘emotional inheritance’, ‘transgenerational trauma’ or ‘spiritual legacy’ have become more widely known.

My book, In My Grandfather’s Shadow: A story of war, trauma and the legacy of silence published by Penguin Transworld in July 2022 explores ways to disentangle from and find resolution to a generational transmission of an unresolved past, whether on an individual, collective or national level. I continue to expand on these themes in my blogs and speaking engagements, encouraging people to get uncomfortable and consider familiar or difficult subjects in a new light while offering practical steps forward that can enrich and liberate from the hurt of a past that isn’t one’s own.

Outside of my work I love to walk or long-distance hike, travel, paint, read, dance, create beautiful spaces or events, visit art exhibitions, watch Scandi-Noir series or drink chilled wine in a warm evening sun.