Mobile County, Alabama (2021)
I’m an experimental geographer, designer, artist-filmmaker, and shipwright.
Rooted in an ethics of edge conditions, I work via sight-/site-based expeditions, staging encounters with places consigned to the margins of geography. In other words, I build boats, ride cargo ships, and walk pipelines - embedding myself in the hidden logistical systems and material practices that organize contemporary life. My work ranges from critical travelogues to experimental films and design research, drawing from literary, media, and technological cultures to find points of contact with peripheral worlds.
Geographically, my practice is frequently anchored in the operational zones and resource frontiers of the Southeastern United States, a fraught mooring from which to trace the circulation of materials and lifeforms across the planet. Methodologically, I work by getting lost alongside my canine companion-collaborator, Boudreaux.
Recent projects include instances of nuclear spelunking in the Deep South, passenger-traveler expeditions through watersheds of planetary energy transition, and various investigations of tunnels and financialization in Atlanta, capsized cargo ships off of the Georgia coast, and zones of migration/production struggle in the Lower Chattahoochee River Valley.
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I received my doctorate from Harvard University, Graduate School of Design. I am a 2026 Nominee for the National Design Award (emerging designer), and for 2024-2025, I was a Fellow with the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative.
Recently, "Tunnel Vision: Notes from 'Generic' Atlanta" was published in Urban Geography; James Enos and I have a chapter in Post-Rational Visuality (May, 2025); “Void Almanac” was published in GeoHumanities (Oct. 2024); I convened the RealTimeNature conference at the Harvard GSD (Sept. 2024). Port Futures + Social Logistics 02, is touring as a film series, having been recently screened at Audio Fontation (NZ), Harard Uniersity (USA), and WEP (Hamburg, DE).
I’m from North Carolina, and I live in Cambridge, MA, USA. I welcome messages at anniesimpson (at) gsd (dot) harvard (dot) edu. My CV – exhibition and screening record, courses taught, published scholarship, etc – is available here. Portfolio, films, exhibition images, and press archive are also available upon request.
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My projects have been supported by the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative; Harvard University, Dean’s Merit Award and the Doctor of Design Research Grant; Monument Lab, National Fellowship; the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina; Duke University, John Hope Franklin Documentary Fellowship; University of Georgia, Campus Sustainability Grant, Willson Center Graduate Research Award, Broun Fund Award, and Graduate School Travel Grant.
My work has been exhibited or screened at sites including Audio Foundation [Auckland, New Zealand]; WEP [Hamburg, Germany], Zou-no-hana Terrace [Yokohama, Japan]; Bierumer School [Bierum, Netherlands]; Pier2 Artcenter [Kaohsiung, Taiwan]; Harvard University, Kirkland Gallery [Cambridge, MA]; the Goeth-Instituts across North America [Boston, Chicago, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Montreal, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, and Washington, DC]; Purdue University, Patti and Rusty Rueff Galleries [West Lafayette, IN]; Atheneum [Athens, GA]; The Carrack [Durham NC].
Previously, I worked alongside my first companion-collaborator Mandy (honorary MFA from the University of Georgia, 2022). She was a very good dog.