4 Steadings, Poolewe, Wester Ross | 07350586473 | wah.dancer@gmail.com
Collaborative filmmaker and anthropologist
Creative practitioner who builds collaborative processes with communities around unresolved questions of land, belonging and authority. Has a background in policy on Indigenous land rights and knowledge sovereignty in Australia and New Zealand.
Experienced in:
- Sustained ethnographic research and relationship-building
- Documentary camera work
- Experimental sound recording
- Editing films, sound mixes and still image work
Downwind of Badentarbat (2026, 24 min): Anthropological short film, Coigach, Wester Ross
Final research project, MA Visual Anthropology, University of Manchester. Submitted for assessment October 2026.
- Made a 24-minute film from two months living in Coigach, taking part in everyday life and letting conversations shape the film. The film explores land, ownership, community belonging and authority in a community that came into land ownership in 2024.
- Worked with residents on on-screen performances, and with a local artist on a fabric map that was taken out across the landscape and filmed at seven sites. Treated a politicised topic with care by holding people’s accounts side by side without ranking them.
- First screening planned for residents of Coigach, in the community hall, later this year.
Department of Premier and Cabinet, State of Victoria, Australia
Senior Policy Officer & Policy Officer, Yoorrook Truth and Justice Commission Response and Engagement | February 2022–June 2024
- Managed key relationships and drove policy and legislative change on indigenous rights over material held in State archives
- Worked in small, dedicated research team drawing on archival resources, academic texts and government reports to produce documents representing the State Government’s position on Royal Commission into colonisation in State of Victoria
Office for Māori-Crown Relations, New Zealand
Policy Analyst | November 2019–January 2022
- Policy design integrating Māori rights and customs into whole of government policy and legislation.
Education
- University of Manchester – Master of Arts Visual Anthropology, graduation 2026.
- University of Melbourne – Understanding Treaty; and Indigenous and Other Sovereignties micro-credentials, 2023.
- Victoria University of Wellington – Master of Philosophy, Politics and Economics (Distinction), 2020.
- Victoria University of Wellington – Bachelor of Arts (Cultural Anthropology and History), 2019.
Awards and Acknowledgements
Victoria University Excellence Scholarship, 2016
DPC Group Excellence Award 2024
Victoria Graduate Award, 2019
Dean’s List, 2018
