PAST ACRE RESIDENTS
2025Asia CybeleAsia’s research focused on bridging the space between art as a solitary, introspective practice and life within a vibrant community, where creative expression can be shaped and expanded through collective presence. She explored how these different modes of working generated distinct kinds of images, drawing inspiration from traditions of religion-adjacent portraiture once commissioned by noble families and reimagining them for Braziers’ contemporary, non-traditional, secular community. Her residency included sharing sessions, workshops, and a final exhibition. A significant element of her process involved journaling and reflecting on her experience at Braziers, sharing these insights with the community through writing that often took the form of poetic performance rather than formal conclusions. Read an interview with Asia about her residency and studio practice.
2025Sarah Jihae KayeIn her ACRE research project titled Recipes for Art Education, Sarah explored communal learning systems at Braziers Park as models for ecologically and communally informed pedagogy. Focusing on Gardening Wednesdays and Shared Meals, the project examined these practices as embodied, sensory, and relational approaches to inclusive art education. Framed as a conceptual and practical “cookbook,” the research developed adaptable educational “recipes,” translating Braziers’ communal practices into tools for diverse learning contexts. Grounded in ecopedagogy, decolonial thought, and dialogic learning, the project challenged Western-centric educational paradigms and produced an open-source resource for fostering relational, sustainable, and community-based approaches to art education. Read Sarah’s reflections on her residency at Braziers Park here.
2024Florence BrightonFlorence’s ACRE research project explored how intentional communities can function as living experiments in degrowth and diverse economies, drawing on ethnographic research conducted at Braziers Park. Focusing on communal labour, shared resources, sustainable practices, alternative economic models, and decentralised decision-making, the research examined how everyday practices at Braziers align with degrowth principles such as reduced consumption, reciprocity, and collective care. Through interviews, observation, and participation, Florence analysed how community members negotiate relationships with the wider market economy while cultivating cohesion and shared responsibility. Situated within radical geography and post-capitalist thought, the research positioned Braziers Park as a site for experimenting with socioecological futures beyond growth-centred economic models. Following her residency, Florence was awarded the EGRG Dissertation Prize for this research – click here to find out more.
2024Tabitha GammerDuring her ACRE residency at Braziers Park, Tabitha developed a series of six works on paper exploring the aesthetics of candid imagery within a communal living context. Drawing on photography, drawing, and mixed media, the research examined how unguarded moments, social dynamics, and everyday interactions shape collective and individual experience. Through observation, informal conversations, participation in community life, and engagement with the surrounding landscape, the project investigated themes of connection, uncertainty, and collective responsibility. Working with found materials and spontaneous imagery, the residency extended Tabitha’s ongoing inquiry into feminism, sustainability, and spirituality, while exploring how unpredictability, presence, and relational awareness influence artistic practice within shared environments.
2024Joseph WalshDuring his residency at Braziers Park, Joseph developed an expanded body of research exploring plant life as a site of observation, relation, and transformation. Working across film, drawing, and writing, the residency centred on immersive studies with herbs, hedgerow, and meadow habitats, combining direct observation with embodied practices such as drawing and the preparation of plant infusions. Through participation in garden work, communal life, and informal exchange, the project examined plants as more than food or medicine, approaching them instead as ancient technologies capable of reshaping human relationships to self, psyche, and community. Informed by alchemical traditions, neurodiverse and culturally diverse modes of expression, and Joseph’s ongoing interest in collective organisation, the residency extended his enquiry into how inner bodily experience, ecological attention, and shared living can mutually inform artistic practice and experimental forms of community life.
2023Nor GreenhalghPlaces of the Imagination was an ACRE research and development residency by Nor Greenhalgh exploring how place, community, and material practice shape wellbeing and identity. Drawing on her background in placemaking, mental health work, and site-specific visual art, Nor investigated how co-living environments like Braziers Park generate a strong sense of place through history, dialogue, and collective imagination. The project combined conceptual inquiry into the meaning of “place” with hands-on experimentation using local and recycled materials, sculptural prototyping, and decorative art forms. Through making, observation, and community dialogue, the research examined how artistic practice can contribute to healthier, more meaningful shared environments.
2023Hermionie SpriggsTraps as Artworks and Artworks as Traps was an ACRE residency project by Hermione Spriggs, extending her practice-based PhD research into human–animal relations and rural pest control. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with pest control practitioners in England, the project explored the knowledge, techniques, and ethical frameworks involved in tracking and trapping animals. During her residency, Hermione developed skills in natural tanning through an apprenticeship with a professional tanner, transforming mole pelts – by-products of pest control – into sustainable artistic materials. Living and working at Braziers Park, the research examined human–pest relations through making, dialogue, and sensory experimentation, proposing playful and humane approaches to ecological coexistence within a communal, rural setting.
2023Kyle BerlinDuring his ACRE residency at Braziers Park, Kyle developed research at the intersection of documentary theatre, oral history, writing, and performance, exploring questions of collectivity, community, and more-than-human relations. Drawing on his background in politically engaged theatre and ethnographic storytelling across the Americas, the residency provided space to further writing projects while engaging closely with the dynamics of communal life at Braziers. Through conversation, observation, and creative experimentation, Kyle investigated how residents relate to shared challenges and cohabitation with non-human life, including the presence of moles on the grounds. The project explored the potential for live documentary theatre as a way of articulating collective feeling, dialogue, and ecological entanglement within an intentional community.
2022Dr Stephanie Moran
Stephanie’s ACRE research at Braziers Park contributed to her AHRC-funded, cross-disciplinary PhD completed with the University of Plymouth’s Transtechnology Research group in 2023. Her project examined human visual bias in narrative, drawing on zoology, literary theory, aesthetics, and ecological psychology to question how meaning is constructed across human and more-than-human worlds. Through observation, discussion, and research-in-residence, the work explored alternative narrative frameworks that move beyond vision-centred human perspectives. The residency supported the development of this research within a communal and ecologically attuned setting, informing Stephanie’s wider practice at the intersection of culture, technology, and interspecies communication, and contributing to her broader inquiry into perception, storytelling, and ecological understanding.
2022Dr Ian HareDuring his 2022 ACRE residency, Ian initiated and organised the UK Intentional Communities Conference at Braziers Park, an event that has since become an annual gathering. The conference was developed as a research-led intervention to raise the visibility of communal and intentional living, foster collaboration between communities, and celebrate shared practices through discussion, learning, and collective enjoyment. Bringing together community members, researchers, and those curious about intentional living, the project positioned Braziers Park as a key site for exchange and dialogue around alternative forms of social organisation. Ian’s residency built on his background in the philosophy of mental health, including doctoral research focused on autism, and extended his interest in collective life, participation, and care.
2022Paul GeeDuring his 2022 ACRE residency, Paul focused on collating, editing, and developing unpublished writings on the philosopher John Macmurray, who was closely involved in the early history of Braziers Park. The residency provided time and space to deepen engagement with Macmurray’s ideas, particularly his emphasis on the primacy of community and the belief that thought should be aligned with the practical intentions guiding how we live. Working within a living, intentional community, Paul explored Macmurray’s philosophy as something enacted rather than abstract, situating intellectual inquiry within the everyday realities, relationships, and ethical challenges of communal life.
2021Dr Shuo Feng
During her ACRE residency at Braziers Park, Shuo conducted ethnographic research contributing to her doctoral studies in Critical Marketing. Her research explored how ideas of luxury are reconfigured in post-consumerist contexts, focusing on alternative interpretations of value, care, and abundance within communal living. Spending six months embedded in the daily life of Braziers Park, the project examined how luxury might be understood beyond material consumption, through social relations, shared resources, and collective practices. Drawing on critical luxury studies and consumer culture theory, the residency supported in-depth observation and participation, informing Shuo’s wider inquiry into how social settings that decentre consumption can reshape meanings of luxury and wellbeing.
Braziers Park School of Integrative Social Research
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