How to Exist Across Borders?

Most maps assume you belong in one place. One language, one culture, one identity, one role. Clean categories. On the ground, most of us are messier than that. At least I am.

As the child of a divorce, I spent my early years between homes. It continued in my adult life: between French, English and Chinese, between Europe, Australia and Asia, between roles, organisations, and communities. That position is uncomfortable, we know that. It's also rich. You can see things from the threshold that are invisible from either side. More: by just existing in-between, you start holding things together, as an embodied connective tissue.

This thread gathers writing that explores the wisdom of ecotones: where ecosystems overlap, and new things become possible. Travel and place. Language and translation. Queer communities. Work between official structures.

Featured

Beyond Butterflies

Innovation happens in liminal spaces. Beyond Butterflies: Designing the Future Through Ecotonal Innovation draws on the wisdom of nature by exploring the ecotone: that rich in-between space where ecosystems meet and overlap. From individual career paths and organisational design to start-up incubators, this booklet turns to foxes, gels and lichens (and others) as ecotonal guides to broaden our perception of how the world actually works, and redesign our professional lives in times of uncertainty. Buy it here or read through the series in its original blog format.

Shapeshifters Commons

In 2025, I co-founded Shapeshifters Group, a non-profit organisation giving voice and visibility to the professionals who do liminal work in organisations and ecosystems. This was directly inspired by my own experience and that of my co-founders: cross-functional roles or informal community stewardship, with no clear mandate, community, or institutional support. The Shapeshifters Commons is at the core of our attempt to fix that: it’s an open wiki presenting models and tools for that ‘shapeshifting work’. Everything that goes into holding things together from an in-between position.

Travel and place

Les Portes de l’Orient

In 2008, instead of flying from Paris to Melbourne, my partner and I took three months to travel overland from Paris to Singapore. The journey was deliberate: it was a slow crossing of the Eurasian continent to move into a new life. This blog documented the trip in real time: the landscapes, the people, the border crossings, the slow shift in everything familiar. It is the founding document for everything in this thread.

The Essence of St Kilda

This is my first piece of writing in English, submitted to a local competition in 2009, months after migrating to Melbourne – and shortlisted. The concept: a recently arrived Frenchman attempts to define the essence of his new suburb by working through every definition of the word essence in his French dictionary, from Aristotle to petrol distillation, from Sartre to souvlaki smells. Read the piece here.

The Fake China

In summer 2011, I taught French at Tianjin Normal University. Staying in a large East coast city with strong European influences, I often heard people tell me that I should head inland in order to discover ‘the real China’. Instead, I chose to try and understand Tianjin as a meeting ground for East and West, and celebrate its artificiality.

Living in China

I had two periods of life in China: in July-August 2011, and again in August-December 2013. Happening at a time of boom and opening for the country, both were transformative for me. The posts in this thread were written around that period, and share some of my personal experiences, enthusiasms and frustrations.

Australian Aesthetics

I migrated to Melbourne from Paris in 2008. A crucial step in my migration journey was to develop a sense of appreciation for the sights offered by Australian cities – experience Australian beauty. This blog is an attempt at capturing the shape of Australian urban landscape, through text and photographs.

Looking back at my 35 year old self

In 2013, I spent a term of studies in Nanjing. This was a transformative experience, and a chance to reflect on my migration journey to Australia. Around my birthday – which I spent climbing the sacred mountain of Tai Shan – I wrote a series of posts reflecting on my own trajectory.

Language, translation, intercultural work

Across languages and culturES

I’m a European polyglot living in Australia, with professional and personal experience around the world. This series reflects on my exploration of intercultural spaces, and what happens in them.

Marco Polo Magazine - exploring the Chinese blogosphere

In 2011, I founded Marco Polo Project to build common ground between Chinese and Western readers. Our first initiative was a digital magazine crowd-sourcing the translation of essays, opinion pieces, and social commentary from the Chinese blogosphere. The magazine fed into Danwei Media (now supChina) as a weekly column, the 1510 digest. It also informed contributions to The China Story, the ANU Centre on China in the World's publication: on happiness and the Chinese public sphere, on the ethics of public debate, and on bringing up children in contemporary China. The full archive of translated texts lives at the Marco Polo Museum. The history of the organisation from 2011 to 2016, including a weekly digest, is documented on the Marco Polo Project blog.

Li Yehang — Portrait of a Christian online philosopher

In 2013, I wrote a portrait essay on Li Yehang, a Chinese Christian philosopher who was active in the early blogosphere. He was one of the voices Marco Polo Project was built to amplify. The essay was published in French in Revue NUNC no. 31, "Pierres vivantes de Chine” October 2013. Read the full essay here.

Marco Polo facilitation handbook

In 2015, I brought together a group of facilitators as part of the ‘Marco Polo Project co-lab’ to explore new ways of facilitating intercultural engagement. Together, we produced the Marco Polo Handbook: a facilitator’s toolbox explicitly designed with a diverse group in mind.

Marco Polo Events and Programs

Marco Polo Magazine soon anchored a community of practice. Its core meeting ground was Translation Club: a peer-learning event built around the collaborative translation of Chinese texts. No expert in the room: instead, a structured process that used the resistance of translation as a trigger for cultural insight. We ran Translation Club as a weekly Melbourne Meetup, monthly in Tokyo, and one-off events in Singapore, Mexico City, Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, and beyond. Read about our model here. In 2014, we also ran the Marco Polo Festival of Digital Literature, a world-first bilateral event exploring how Chinese and English-speaking writers share stories online. We designed and piloted other intercultural programs in schools and universities, including Design for Diversity a human-centred design program for international students.

Identity, Community, Queerness

Love Journeys

Before gay marriage, same-sex couples migrating to Australia had to write a document proving their relationship. I became fascinated by this, imagining the days of public servants reading and assessing love stories. Love Journeys documents the stories of same-sex migrants to Australia through texts and photographs. It was featured at the Melbourne Midsumma Festival and Adelaide Feast Festival 2011.