Kia ora, I’m David.

I grew up in south of Germany, surrounded by rolling green hills, forests and with the Alps at my doorstep. Since 2015 I’ve been calling Ōtautahi Christchurch (Aotearoa New Zealand) home. I trained as a mycologist (PhD, University of Canterbury, 2025) after an earlier career in mass spectrometry and international sales across Europe, Asia, and the US.

My work and creative interests have always landed me in positions of bridge-building, translating between different worlds and ways of knowing. I’ve led complex projects across creative, scientific, and commercial contexts, most recently as technical lead and Co-Founder at Goodbye Monkey, where I co-built S.A.N (Sentient Advocate of Nature), an AI orangutan deployed at Burning Man 2025 and featured at TED Talks 2024. As a creative endeavour that kept me engaged outside of work, I worked alongside an artist collective in Christchurch designing Meow Wolf-style immersive events from 2020 to 2025. I was initially drawn to help reimagine night life culture, and over time realised I care even more deeply about connecting people with each other and with transformative experiences. This also comes through in my passion as a DJ, ecstatic dance facilitator and event organizer. And I lead an online meditation group, hosting monthly meditation challenges for my community to cultivate metta (loving kindness), mindfulness and insight.

Photography is another big part of my life. Throughout my childhood I often used my parents’ cameras to capture whatever caught my eye, and later landed on landscape and nature photography as my main passion — which pairs well with my love for hiking, tramping, climbing and mountaineering. I also shoot portraits, weddings and events. Below is a sneak peek of my portfolio, which you can dive in at your leisure.

Lately I’ve been pouring my heart into two startups that weave together a lot of my interests and values, mainly centered around helping people reconnect to themselves, to nature and to each other. It’s still early days, I will share more as we secure pathways for funding. My vision for the future is that we live again in kinship systems that foster belonging, growth and mutual care.