I’m an experimental geographer and shipwright.
I co-direct Port Futures + Social Logistics, and for 2024-2025, I was a Fellow with the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative. I received my doctorate from Harvard University, Graduate School of Design.
As an essayist and video-essayist, 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 places consigned to the margins of geography.
Recently, my work has considered...
Remote sensing as an uneasy promise of environmental attention in "The trouble in a sense;" curatorial essay for PFSL02 (2026).
Selfhood at the edge of international shipping’s calculated amnesia in Linda; screened as part of PFSL02 (2025-2026).
Rem Koolhass and Atlanta punks in "Tunnel Vision: Notes from 'Generic' Atlanta;" published in Urban Geography (2025).
Providence Canyon's unstable images in Post-Rational Visuality; book chapter co-authored w/James Enos (2025).
Faulkner’s Mississippi in the shadow of nuclear testing in “Void Almanac;” published in GeoHumanities ( 2024).
Remote sensing and the changing terms of ecological experience at RealTimeNature; conference at Harvard GSD (2024).
I am currently working on an essay on horses, financialization, and biopolitics in the mega-complexes of Florida’s equestrian industry.
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I’m from North Carolina, and I live in Cambridge, MA, USA. I welcome messages at asimps (at) protonmail (dot) com. 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.
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.
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 Goethe-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].