One morning earlier this year, I was in my garden with a cup of tea, with the Merlin bird ID app open. I realised I was surrounded by a charm of goldfinches! With its vibrant energy and beautiful song, the goldfinch is celebrated in European folklore as the bird of joy. In Gaelic, she is the lasair-choille, or the flash of the forest, with her yellow wings and flecks of red. In Scots poetry, she is the goldie, or gowdspink, embodying the spirit of possibility, renewal, resistance and freedom. For me, the goldfinch is an inspiration—a reminder to break free from constraints, to live life on our own terms, to appreciate the beauty in small things.

I’d like to think that in some ways, the spirit of the goldfinch shapes my own work. I’m an independent freelancer and creative collaborator, working across the interconnected roles of educator, researcher, writer, organiser, facilitator, ethnologist and fieldworker. My work is rooted in cultural connection, learning from the land and from nature, and I advocate for transformative, regenerative alternatives to capitalism—seeking to weave together cultural tradition, ecology and community in meaningful ways.

Over the years, I’ve collaborated with a range of organisations, institutions and an interdisciplinary network of artists, educators, and practitioners. I’ve held residencies, contributed to publications—print and online—as well as courses, exhibitions, podcasts and gatherings. My own events bring hopeful and radical ideas to life through shared cultural experiences—whether that’s through music and song, storytelling or conversations that imagine more hopeful futures rooted in connection, joy and solidarity.

A lot of my recent work is in collaboration with Raghnaid Sandilands. Together, we’ve developed a practice of cultural darning and mending—finding disparate threads from the past and weaving them back together with care and purpose. While we acknowledge that we cannot mend the whole, we can make small acts of repair that can nurture imaginations and invite people to enter into an ethical and reciprocal relationship with the land, its past, people and their stories. This idea shaped our residency with the Findhorn Watershed Initiative (2023-2025), where we explored the role of culture and creativity in rekindling relationships of care for and stewardship of the river Findhorn. We also created work for ‘A Fragile Correspondence’ at the International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia (2023), re-staged at the V&A Dundee (2024-2025).

I also contribute to education in different ways, teaching short courses such as Tobar an Dualchais: Creative Connections, for people (visual artists, writers, musicians, budding-folklorists and creative educators) who want to learn more about the Tobar an Dualchais archive resource of folk culture through the lens of cultural ecology and environmental awareness. I have also worked with the Centre for Human Ecology, teaching online courses exploring degrowth, decolonisation and climate justice in a Scottish context.

My academic background is in creative ethnology and human ecology—two fields that deeply inform my practice. Ethnology is a form of anthropology, focused on understanding the relationship between people and place. Human ecology explores the connections between nature, culture, society and economy, integrating environmental and social justice.

I’ve been out of formal academia for a while now, but I have over ten years of experience in teaching, lecturing, and tutoring. I taught for several years in the Department of Celtic & Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh (2009-2017) and at Newbattle Abbey College (2014-2016). I hold an award-winning PhD from the University of Edinburgh (2012), a thesis exploring the aesthetics and poetics of traditional song. After my PhD, I held a brief fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities, (2012-2013) where I explored the cultural-ecological imagination of polymath and ecologist Patrick Geddes (1854-1932). I was also a research associate at the Intercultural Research Centre at Heriot-Watt University, developing a creative ethnological practice informed by geopoetics and a radical human ecology.

I love bringing people together and turning ideas into reality, helping projects grow and make a real difference. I have previously worked with cultural organisations and collectives in various roles, gaining experience in teamwork and collaboration, strategic planning, community engagement, network development and coordination, programme development, project management, grant applications and fundraising, web design and content management as well as social media and communications.

Closer to home, I stay involved in my local community. I serve on my village hall committee and act as a trustee for the Abriachan Forest Trust, where I’m learning about community land ownership, forest management, and forest school education. I also play piano in the local cèilidh band and try to grow vegetables—sometimes successfully!

If you're interested in working together, you can find my freelance services listed here, a portfolio of past projects here, and my full CV here. Feel free to reach out!

Mairi