About

My creative  practice

The Foundations of My Creative Practice

Creative & Ethnographic Methodology:

My creative foundations began with formal training in Fine Art. I completed a Foundation Art Course at New College, Swindon, and later studied Fine Art Painting at Bristol School of Art. Although I left after two years to travel, this formative period established an enduring interest in observation, visual perception and material exploration that continues to inform my work today.

Alongside these artistic beginnings, my academic path developed through environmental and narrative study. I hold a BA in Geography & Politics, specialising in environmentalism, and an MA in Journalism, which grounded my work in research, place and storytelling.

My research later evolved into a doctoral inquiry at the University of Galway, where I focused on arts-based methods and ethnographic practice. This experience refined my approach to fieldwork, observation, narrative construction and community engagement. It also strengthened my understanding of creative practice as a form of inquiry: a way of encountering place and lived experience through processes that allow complexity, ambiguity and different ways of knowing to remain present.

Contemplative practice has been a through-line since 1988, beginning with an introduction to meditation during a retreat in the Serene Reflection Meditation tradition at Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey. Although my practice has since moved far beyond any single lineage, this early training established a sustained attentiveness that continues to shape how I encounter and make work: through observation, return, sensory awareness and an openness to what gradually reveals itself over time.

Together, these artistic, ethnographic, contemplative and environmental foundations underpin a creative practice concerned with relationships between landscape, memory and perception. They inform both how I work in the field and how those encounters are translated through graphite, watercolour, photography, sound and poetic prose, exploring the shifting boundaries between what is observed, remembered, imagined and partially revealed.

How I Work: Methods & Approaches

My practice brings together a range of complementary methods:

Arts-based ethnography

sensory fieldwork, place-based observation, conversational inquiry, and slow-attention practices.

Creative storytelling techniques

inner monologue, imagined dialogue, flashback, layered narrative, visual rhythm, and shifting point of view.

Contemplative methods

attentive presence, embodied listening, environmental awareness, and the capacity to hold emotional and ecological nuance.

Ecological and sensory approaches

seasonal noticing, soundscapes, photographic and video studies, texture-based field notes, and working with the rhythms and memory of landscape.

Image-making and material processes

photography, moving image, and sound as primary forms, alongside sketching and watercolour studies that explore tone, light, and seasonal palettes.

Community-centred engagement

collaborative storytelling, reflective conversations, group exploration, and participatory creative methods.

These approaches allow research, image-making, and lived experience to inform each other, producing work that is both reflective and grounded in place.

Methodologies in Place: Examples

LifeWays (2025–present)

A contemplative art practice exploring memory in landscape through poetic image-making, photography, sound and reflective writing. Developed through slow observation, sensory attunement and ecological listening.

A Year at River Cong (2026)

A site-rooted inquiry using ethnography, contemplative fieldwork, ecological storytelling and community involvement to explore seasonal change, river memory, environmental well-being and belonging.

The Cherry Blossom Tales (2024–2025).

Funded by Creative Ireland & Roscommon County Council, in collaboration with St. Nathy’s College, Ballaghaderreen.

A collaborative storytelling and visual art project combining archival research, ethnographic narrative, creative writing and community engagement. Working with students, the project used techniques such as imagined dialogue, reconstructed narrative, historical layering and sensory storytelling to bring to life the legacy of Anne Deane. It culminated in a youth-led exhibition featuring visual art, a practice-based video and a public presentation that brought the past to life within a contemporary context.

PLACEWAYS (2023-2024)

PlaceWays was a year-long, community-embedded project that brought my arts-based ethnography, contemplative methods, and sensory fieldwork together in a living, participatory setting.  Working across the heritage sites of Ballaghaderreen, I led contemplative walks, creative workshops, and storytelling gatherings that explored how people form emotional, sensory and historical connections with place.

The walks revealed that heritage is not only held in physical structures but in the intangible layers of memory, emotion and shared stories that shape belonging.  Our community practice became a unique process of layering personal recollections with archival research and embodied experience.

The project culminated in a heritage exhibition at The Shambles, featuring original photographs from 1950s, recorded stories, memorabilia, and creative responses gathered over the year.

PlaceWays demonstrates how contemplative attention, relational engagement, and creative ethnographic methods can activate place-based memory, strengthen community connection, and support new understandings of local identity.

REKINDLING THE FIRE: FOOD & THE JOURNEY OF LIFE

(2019-2022) Published in 2022, by Austin Macauley.

Rekindling the Fire is a sustained work of creative ethnography, contemplative writing, and narrative witnessing.

The book emerged from three years collaboration with chef and lecturer Dr. Martin Ruffley, who courageously shared his story of recovering from addiction through cooking. Where Martin offers recipes and memory fragments shaped by years in professional kitchens, my narrative brings to life his story.

As McKenna’s Guides wrote:

“Anna King drives the narrative of this unforgettable book with skill and subtlety, teasing the wise philosophy of living from the author's fraught experiences.”

PhD in Philosophy (Ethnography and Arts-based Methods) 2009-2014

Awarded a prestigious three year full-time Irish Research Council Scholarship.

Title: An Alternative Gathering: Public Space and Shared Agency in the Lived Experience of Multicultural Ireland. Abstract & Download at University of Galway

During my ethnographic field practice I carried out three years of immersive fieldwork in Doughiska, Roscam and Ardaun. This involved long-term participant observation, creative workshops, in-depth conversations, and community-embedded research exploring everyday life, belonging, and local identity. One strand of this work focused on documenting the rapid social and spatial change in these evolving suburbs through collaborative storytelling and arts-based inquiry.

  • Selected Training & Study

    Academic & Research Background

    • PhD – arts-based methods and ethnographic inquiry, University of Galway, (awarded prestigious three-year Irish Research Council funding)

    • MA in Journalism – University of Galway

    • BA (Geography & Politics), specialising in environmentalism – Oxford Brookes University, Oxford

    • Foundation Art Course – Swindon School of Art

    • First-Year Fine Art Painting – Bristol School of Art

    • Participatory Appraisal in Community Research – Sheffield University (2002)

    • Training Delivery & Evaluation – QQI Level 6, Distinction (2015)

    • Embodied & Contemplative Study

    • Long-term Contemplative Practice (1988–present)

    • Courses with Embodied Philosophy

    • Qualified Yoga Teacher

    • Qualified Breath-Work Teacher

  • Since 2010 I have taught contemplative practice, meditation and breath-work in both community and professional settings, including HIQA, Allergan Pharmaceuticals, Wayfair, Spina Bifida Hydrocephalus Ireland, Cambus Medical and the Belmond Grand Hibernian.

    Alongside this, I have facilitated sensory-based workshops and creative writing workshops – including Discover Your Creative Voice Through the Senses” at Atlantic Technological University (School of Culinary Arts).

    From 2010–2025 I also led contemplative retreats and group sessions across Galway City and County.