Biography

Anya pursued her BA in Conservation Biology at Dartmouth College where she was the HHMI Fellow at the Institute of Arctic Studies, followed by a bachelor's degree in Intermedia Art from the University of Edinburgh. She completed her Masters in Fine Art at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford (St. Edmund’s Hall) with distinction, winning the inaugural Mansfield-Ruddock Prize for her piece Granny’s Bones. She is currently pursuing a DPhil in Human Geography (SoGE) at Mansfield College, focusing on performance, knowledge, and conflict on indigenous Evenki lands in Central Siberia. 

In 2018, Anya founded The Flute & Bowl, Oxford’s Art & Science Society, which brought together artists and scientists from across the University to work on collaborative, interdisciplinary projects that challenge existing colonial/unsustainable narratives and forge new approaches to a culturally and ecologically resilient future. She was a committee member of the Environmental Humanities TORCH Network and a Global Leadership Initiative Scholar. 

She has been a recipient of TORCH seed funding to forge a working relationship between indigenous Evenki institutions in Siberia and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford on the project "Wandering through other worlds talking with the spirits" and the resulting piece has been featured in the Moscow Biennale in 2020.

Anya’s research interests lie at the intersection of Performance Art and Environmental Science. Community mobilization and engagement rest at the core of her artistic practice.

Research Interests

• Human Geography

• Performance

• Cultural knowledge 

• Conflict 

• Indigenous communities

• Evenki lands

• Central Siberia