I am Lora Aziz, an Egyptian–British interdisciplinary artist, writer, and researcher whose work moves between walking-based arts, environmental storytelling, and community-led cultural practice. My projects explore how land, memory, and migration shape the ways we inhabit place, drawing on Arab, North African, diasporic, and ecological perspectives. I am currently co-chair of the Arts and Culture working group of the World Trails Network.
My projects weave writing, performance, socially-engaged arts and site-specific research. At the heart is a question: How do we become more present to the land, water and stories beneath our feet? Through residencies, installations and workshops I have worked across the UK and internationally - collaborating with communities, archives, museums and universities. My ongoing research explores climate, water, cultural memory and how these intersect through art. My British Council COP27 commission with Motanafas collective, Walking in Wadis (exhibited at the Wellcome Collection) and my Visiting Research Fellowship at the University of Essex Sociology Department develop new methodologies for cultural ecology, participatory fieldwork and water-based place-making. My latest work, Blue Steps Along the Saffron Trail, builds on this foundation. Supported by the Essex and Suffolk Water Bluespaces Fund, this project explores where Essex’s 70-mile Saffron Trail meets water-lines - springs, streams, wetlands and estuarine edges and asks: What becomes possible when we walk these water-corridors carefully, creatively and together?During the Jan–Apr 2026 phase we will map, survey, engage and imagine a new kind of blue-green cultural corridor grounded in ecology, narrative and community.My work is shaped by a belief in accessibility, ecological responsibility and shared storytelling. I create spaces for collective reflection, sensory connection and new forms of narrative rooted in place. I welcome collaboration with artists, ecologists, communities and curious thinkers who want to explore land, water and the possible together.