pollen’s evolution

The idea of pollen came about in early June of 2022. I was in Sheffield, where I grew up, and sinking into a long summer. The plan was to design a storytelling platform which encouraged more personal explorations of the climate and nature crises. The role of art, and non-verbal expression, was core to the thinking. Highlights of pollen’s first season include the creation of a gallery on our former website, contributed to by artists including lizmnk and Alicia Van Den Abeele , and holding a stand at the Lotus Nova Festival in London. As Autumn neared, I moved to Paris to continue my studies. Here, the project relaxed into itself. My mind drifted to pollen often and the website became an outlet for reflective writing and I recorded the first few pollen interviews.

pollen started feeling like a state of mind, and a lens for processing information, conversations, and experiences. Having grown up as youth climate activism was peaking, and knowing the draw, the rush, and the dis-enchantements of direct action, I became more pulled to stories that simmer in the mind and embrace the tensions of living in times of socio-ecological strain, change, and turmoil than those geared to shock or seed a sense of isolated individual culpability.

In pollen’s second year, summer 2023 - 2024, I was occupied by how nature-connectedness can be nurtured, and a love for the wild world felt, whilst grappling with the reality of climate breakdown. The articles (not all at which have been kept on the new site) were mostly reflective, pondering on events and drawing heavily on books like Braiding Sweetgrass, Finding the Mother Tree, and The Wild Places. We explored the concept of taking the climate and nature emergencies more personally. This includes appreciating our interconnections with the rest of nature and the fortitude to be found through time in wild places.

Our third year, summer 2024 - 2025, felt promising. The philosopher, and fellow Rights of Nature activist, Håkon Evjemo launched a series of articles on the legal personality of oak trees; George Hill contributed a piece in light of reading Nan Shepherds work; and the Embassy of Nature invited me to speak at an event during the Paris Olympics about pollen, and how it has changed the way I communicate on climate matters. A talented team at the University of Edinburgh reached out and brought the idea of a physical publication called The Grappler into being. My own writing expanded to include research and interviews of various sorts - exploring dance music with Jed Dutton, cinema with Tolmeia Gregory and Jake Randall, the Interspecies Council practice, and Time Travel with Helen Lucocq. I felt humbled by how others engaged with the project and grateful for the unique contributions garnered.

pollen’s fourth year, summer 2025 - 2026, started with Cocaine Shrimp and Plastic Nests - two connected article which set the tone for the year to come. I started thinking more deeply about why certain stories linger, and others feel easier to shut out or push aside. Alex May contributed an overview of his theory ‘Interconnected Law’ to the archive. I spoke on panels at the 2025 Festival of Debate, Fearless Cities Summit, and a Water @ Leeds Conference - in each, drawing on the ideas at the core of Cocaine Shrimp and testing how they landed with different audiences. My hope before the autumn arrives, is to find the time to meet with some of those I met at these events and to add some more thoughtful interview to the pollen site.

For me, today, pollen is about processing reports and impacts of change and loss without cutting the lights dancing amongst it. pollen has become something I’m truly compelled by, and never tire of tending to. I hope others will say the same in years to come. Through flurries of activity and quieter times as studies, work, and life-beyond needed more of me, pollen has never gone away. Looking back, I notice that the changes in pollen have been determined by the stories I have been unable to shake - the ones harder to leave alone than to delve further into and work into something worth sharing with others.

I hope that more people are moved to contribute to the pollen archives and to collaborate in as-yet-unimagined ways.

In times of disconnection and disillusion (what have we lost? what are losing? does it matter? what’s there to do in response?) we need those simmering stories to be sought, shared, and saved. I look forward to the next leg of the journey. Thanks for being here already.