Emily “Penny” Penick is a researcher, creative producer, and writer based in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her work explores how people experience creative work, collaboration, and resourcing from the inside — particularly within the performing arts and cultural sector.

With a background spanning theatre, dance, and interdisciplinary performance, Emily has spent many years working closely with artists, producers, and institutions. She is especially interested in how systems shape everyday experience, and how creative and cultural work might be better supported in ways that are sustainable, humane, and responsive to real lives.

She is currently completing doctoral research that brings together lived experience, storytelling, and close attention to practice to better understand how creative ecosystems function — and where they fall short. Her approach is grounded, relational, and attentive to place, drawing inspiration from movement, ecology, and long-term ways of thinking.

Alongside her research, Emily continues to collaborate on creative projects, write, and live a largely off-grid, place-based life, where curiosity, care, and making sense of complex systems remain central.