I am a social anthropologist working at the intersection of research, art, and practice, exploring how physical environments, social communities, and local imaginaries shape one another.
I am currently a visiting professor at the Aarhus School of Architecture, where I co-lead the research project “Utopia Thy” together with architect Mo Krag, focused on regenerative rural development: how vacant village buildings, landscapes, and local knowledge can, through creative and collaborative processes, become a starting point for new forms of community and sustainable futures. I also lead “Vertical Informality”, funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark, which investigates the informal vertical extensions reshaping Maputo, Mozambique, and what these building practices reveal about who is able to build, who decides what is permitted, and how cities actually develop.
Previously I was research professor at the National Museum of Denmark, where I founded and headed the Research Centre for Social Urban Models (SUMO), an interdisciplinary research centre using experience-based, citizen-involving methods to explore socially sustainable urban development through a cultural historical lens. There I developed and led a series of participatory research and exhibition projects, including “Flexible Communities” (Fleksible Fællesskaber), on socially sustainable urban models in social housing estates, funded by Landsbyggefonden and Realdania; “The Power of Modelling” (Modellens Kraft), on the significance of physical models for co-creative museum communication, funded by the Velux Foundations; and “Extreme Urbanism” funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark, on urban development in extreme climate conditions. Over ten years at SUMO I raised more than 25 million DKK in external funding for research and cultural projects connecting scholarship, art, and public engagement.
I regularly speak, teach, and contribute to public debate on creativity, art, and civic education.