Hi, I’m Jessica.

This site is home to personal projects that have grown out of my longstanding interests in the built environment, art and architecture, collective memory, identity, and place.

Throughout my career, I have sought out opportunities to make places more vibrant, distinctive, and successful. My background spans cultural heritage, historic property and neighborhood revitalization, urban planning, museums, and universities, with much of my work focused on strategic planning, project direction, place-based marketing, public programming, and audience engagement. I am a strategic, creative, and entrepreneurial leader who loves taking on ambitious projects, connecting people with ideas and figuring out how to turn vision into something real and lasting.

The personal projects on this site are another expression of my ideas and interests. I am based in New York City but spent seven years working in the Czech Republic (five in Southern Bohemia and two in Prague), where I began Genius Loci and Nation Creation. Both draw on an archive of photographs I took during those years and that I add to whenever I return. My research and work on both projects is ongoing, and they continue to evolve as I add new material, strengthen earlier ideas, and pursue new lines of inquiry.

Both projects reflect my deep connection to the Czech Republic and my longstanding interest in understanding how places take on meaning, how identity and memory become visible, and how we make sense of the world around us.

Thanks for visiting.