For a sociology class, I researched Boobie Brettler, a FLINTA* skating collective from Innsbruck, Austria, exploring how they create safe spaces and foster inclusion within a traditionally male-dominated sport. The research drew on two theoretical frameworks: Durkheim's concept of social solidarity — the idea that shared rituals and collective practices bind communities together, and Alexander's Civil Sphere theory, which examines how societies create spaces of inclusion and exclusion. To bring this research to life, I organised a hands-on workshop where participants upcycled old skateboards by painting them together, turning the act of making into a moment of collective discussion, mirroring the very dynamics Boobie Brettler creates on the street. The painted boards were then displayed in our university, a small gesture toward what the collective embodies: that skating can be an act of reclaiming public space and that inclusion is something you build together.
Skate Back the Street
Whispers of Gaia
In this mixed media project, I combine my own photography and original poetry to explore the Gaia hypothesis, the idea that Earth is a single, interconnected living system. The work moves through four emotional stages: beginning with the world in apparent harmony, then descending into darkness and grief as we confront the damage humanity has caused. From that place of mourning, the project slowly turns toward hope, centering the voices of Indigenous peoples and traditional Earth defenders who have protected and understood this planet long before the rest of us thought to listen.
Stolen Lives
As part of the undergraduate course Stolen Lives: The Indian Boarding School, we collaborated with members of the Anishinaabe community and students from Algoma University in Sault St. Marie, Canada, to support the development of an exhibition on Indigenous child displacement and residential schools. My work focused mainly on researching Indigenous resistance, during the residential school era and continuing today.
Through archival and arts-based methods, we gathered materials including texts, visual documentation and drawings that we later on used to create an exhibition in Sault St. Marie.
Shingwauk student art album loose pictures
The Devil’s Language – Poem by Marilyn Dumont