The Weather-kin projects reimagine how we live with British weather. Grounded in research, language, design and technology, the work creates opportunities for building more-than-human connections and finding joy in rain.
If wetter winters are becoming our new normal, how might we learn to live with them differently?
The Met Office (2025) report that rainfall between October–March has increased by 16% since 1990, with the wettest winter half-year on record occurring as recently as 2023–24. Without cultural shifts, these wetter winters risk driving people indoors and weakening environmental connection and wellbeing.
Central to my research is ecolinguistics, where I examine how language frames weather - influencing behaviour, perception, and people’s relationships with the more-than-human world. In the UK, rain is often framed as “bad” and sunshine as “good” (Stibbe, 2017; 2019). Such narratives undermine appreciation of weather diversity and influence behaviours that can disconnect people from the environment.
Through creative practice and research, my projects experiment with alternative framings of rain to open up new ways of relating to British weather. They aim to encourage reflection and cultural change, strengthening ecological connection, encouraging pro-environmental behaviour and supporting human wellbeing and resilience in a changing climate.
The following projects form part of my practice-based PhD and explore these ideas through immersive, participatory experiences and design-led interventions.
