Speakers at the Future Now Symposium 2018
Alessandro Vincentelli
Curator of Exhibitions & Research, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
Alessandro Vincentelli is Curator of Exhibitions & Research at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead. He previously worked as a Curator at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham and at the Arts Council England. He initially trained in Social Anthropology before completing the Contemporary Curating Course at the Royal College of Art, London. At BALTIC he has curated exhibitions with Ed & Nancy Kienholz, Steve McQueen, Elizabeth Price, Lindsay Seers, Yoko Ono and more.
Alistair Payne
Head, School of Fine Art, Glasgow School of Art
Alistair Payne is the Head of the School of Fine Art, and Professor of Fine Art Practice at The Glasgow School of Art. Previously he was an Undergraduate Programme Leader at the GSA, and the MA Fine Art Course Leader and Senior Lecturer in Fine Art (Painting) at The University of Wolverhampton. In 2006, he was awarded a PhD from Chelsea College of Art. He has published writing on contemporary painting and exhibited internationally including Surface Morphologies, Glasgow, and Indisciplinary Behaviour Bergen, Norway (solo).
Amira Gad
Exhibitions Curator at the Serpentine Galleries
Amira Gad is Exhibitions Curator at the Serpentine Galleries, London, where she has curated exhibitions by Zaha Hadid (2016), Jimmie Durham (2015) and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s 2015 show that received the Sky Arts Award for visual arts. She is a regular contributor to artists catalogues and has edited books including Character is Fate: Mondrian’s Horoscopes, which received the Dutch Best Book Design Award. Gad is Commissioning Editor for Ibraaz, an online platform dedicated to culture in the Middle East and North Africa.
Andrew Marsh
Co-Course Leader, MA Arts and Cultural Enterprise, Central Saint Martins
Andrew March is Co-Course Leader in the MA and BA Arts and Cultural Enterprise alongside Charlotte Bonham-Carter. He is also Curator in Practice for BA Culture, Criticism and Curation, and an independent critic, alongside working as Technical Director for major contemporary art commissions. Marsh’s input includes teaching curatorial practice, critical writing, the art market and managing off-site projects.
Ayo Adeyinka
Director of TAFETA
Ayo Adeyinka is a London-based art dealer who founded TAFETA in 2005, which was re-constituted as a private art dealership specialising in 20th century and Contemporary African Art in 2009. It remains as the leading purveyor of some of the most important artists of African extraction (Ben Enwonwu MBE, Ablade Glover, Muraina Oyelami, Gebre K. Desta et al.) Adeyinka works for a number of private and corporate collections of Modern and Contemporary African Art.
Carla Rapoport
Founder, The Lumen Prize
Carla Rapoport founded the Lumen Prize in 2011 after a career as a journalist with the Financial Times, Fortune Magazine and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). She launched the not-for-profit Lumen Prize to elevate the appreciation, enjoyment and understanding of digital art globally. Now in its seventh year, the prize has staged over 40 shows globally, awarded over $50k in prize money and continues to build opportunities for digital artists across the globe.
Caroline Till
Co-Founder, FranklinTill
Caroline Till is co-founder of FranklinTill, a futures research agency exploring colour and material innovation for positive social and environmental change. Previously directing the Material Futures course at Central Saint Martins, Caroline’s expertise is routed in sustainable design practices and innovation. She is Editor of Viewpoint and Viewpoint Colour, and co-author of Radical Matter: Rethinking materials for a sustainable future published by Thames & Hudson.
Christopher Moore
Deputy Vice Chancellor for Advancement, York St John University
Before his appointment at YSJ, Professor Moore was Assistant Vice-Principal and Director of the British School of Fashion. Prior to that, he was Chair in Marketing and Head of the Department of Management at Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh. His current research interests include retailer internationalisation; luxury brand marketing and trends and developments in youth consumption. Chris has been widely published.
Darren Pih
Exhibitions and Displays curator, Tate Liverpool
Darren Pih has been part of the exhibitions team at Tate Liverpool since 2006. His exhibitions and commissions include Yves Klein: Theatre of the Void (2016-2017), Transmitting Andy Warhol (2014-2015), Richard Hawkins: Hijikata Twist (2014) and Glam! The Performance of Style (2013-2014). Previously, he has worked as Exhibitions Organiser at The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, and as Office Manager at Camden Arts Centre, London. Image © Tate Liverpool, Laura Deveney.
En Liang Khong
Assistant Digital Editor, frieze
En Liang Khong is Assistant Digital Editor at frieze magazine. He is also a regular arts reviewer for acclaimed publications such as The Times Literary Supplement and Financial Times. He previously worked as a journalist at openDemocracy, specialising in Chinese human rights, and his writing on art and politics has also appeared in Prospect, the New Statesman and The New Inquiry. Alongside this, he is former BBC Young Composer of the Year, and tweets: @en_khong
Edmund Clark
Artist
Edmund Clark’s work links history, politics and representation through a range of forms including bookmaking, installations, photography, video, text and found images. He engages with state censorship to explore unseen experiences and processes of control and incarceration in the “Global War on Terror” and elsewhere. Clark has published six books, won several awards and exhibited widely in major solo shows at the ICP, New York and the Imperial War Museum, London.
Gideon Koppel
Professor of Film, Manchester Metropolitan University
Gideon Koppel is an artist and filmmaker whose work has screened internationally in galleries including Tate Modern and MoMA. Koppel has made a number of fashion films and commercials, including a film installation for Comme des Garçons, shown at the Florence Biennale. Koppel also won the 2010 Guardian First Film Award for his critically-acclaimed Sleep Furiously. He is Professor of Film at Manchester School of Art.
Griselda Goldsbrough
Art and Design Development Manager, York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Griselda Goldsbrough is a visual artist and writer, community educator and co-curator of an arts and events company, Spike and Sponge. She has over 15 years’ experience in devising and curating creative art, science and literature programmes and events. Griselda provides comprehensive arts and education consultancy which is tailored to meet client’s specific needs. She has also been involved in the Aesthetica Art Prize for several years running.
Jacquelyn Jubert
Director, Anise Gallery
Jacquelyn Jubert is the Director of Anise Gallery in London, an exhibition and event space showcasing the joint disciplines of art and architecture. Jacquelyn established Anise Gallery in 2012 after the extensive renovation of the spice warehouse in Shad Thames and has exhibited a range of early- to mid-career artists in a range of forms from large-scale installation to virtual reality. Anise Gallery’s annual Summer Graduate Show provides a platform for graduates in London’s art scene.
Jasmina Cibic
Artist
Jasmina Cibic represented Slovenia at the 55th Venice Biennial with her project For Our Economy and Culture. Her recent solo shows include BALTIC Gateshead, Museum Haus Esters–Krefeld, Aarhus 2017, MSU Zagreb, MSU Belgrade, MGLC Ljubljana, and Ludwig Museum Budapest and group exhibitions at Esker Foundation Calgary, Hessel Museum New York, City Gallery Wellington, MSUM Ljubljana, MNHA Luxembourg and Guangdong Museum of Art, China.
www.jasminacibic.org
Javier Pes
Editor, Artnet News UK
Javier Pes was editor of The Art Newspaper, having worked for the publication for almost a decade, joining in 2008. He was appointed deputy editor in 2009 and became editor June 2017. Pes now works as Editor for Artnet, an art market founded in 1989 with the goal of bringing transparency to the art world. The company is the leading online resource for buying, selling and researching art. With 24/7 bidding, Artnet Auctions is the first platform for buying and selling contemporary works.
Jenny Kean
Subject Director, Media Production, York St John University
Jenny’s career in journalism spans 25 years in radio and magazines. With the BBC, she covered stories from the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) to the historic 2010 election count. Jenny taught an International Broadcast Journalism MA at Birmingham City University, before moving to Spain where she edited an English lifestyle magazine, La Luz. Before joining York St John, Jenny was course leader for the BA Hons Journalism degree at Leeds Beckett.
John O’Shea
Senior Exhibitions Manager, National Science and Media Museum
John O’Shea is a curator, producer and artist working nationally and internationally, exploring the boundaries of artistic practice and the societal impact of emerging technologies. He Guest Curator to the FAULT LINES programme at Future Everything, regional lead for Arts Council England’s Digital Cultures initiative and Senior Exhibitions Manager at the National Science and Media Museum, Bradford, UK
Kate Simpson
Assistant Editor, Aesthetica
Kate Simpson is Assistant Editor of Aesthetica Magazine, having joined the team in 2016. She works across digital and print platforms, producing curated content for international readerships of over 375,000, showcasing both established and emerging artists. Kate has also been involved in a number of editorial initiatives and related projects including The Future Now Symposium, The Aesthetica Art Prize and the BAFTA-Recognised Aesthetica Short Film festival.
www.aestheticamagazine.com
Lara Prendergast
Assistant Editor, The Spectator
Lara Prendergast is Assistant Editor at The Spectator, a weekly British magazine that covers politics, culture, and current affairs and was established in 1828. She has previously worked on the Freelance Features and Culture Desks at the Daily Telegraph, as well as working on various projects for Vogue India, The Evening Standard and Intelligent Life. She has written widely for a variety of publications, including the Financial Times, the Evening Standard and Apollo Magazine.
Lucy Johnston
Author, Digital Handmade
Author Lucy Johnston is a consultant, curator and journalist, with a 15-year background in consumer trend analysis and brand strategy. She specialises in exploring the effects of new technologies on the world around us – creating engaging ways to explain the cultural movements and commercial trends that result from digital innovation. Digital Handmade, published by Thames & Hudson, offers the first global survey of the evolving “digital artisan” creative movement.
Lottie Davies
Photographer, artist and writer
Lottie Davies was born in Guildford, UK, in 1971 and is a photographer, artist and writer based in London. Davies’ work explores personal histories; the tales, myths and memories we use to structure meaning in our lives. She employs a deliberate reworking of our visual vocabulary, exploring notions of nostalgia and visual conventions, with the intention of evoking a sense of recognition. She was shortlisted for the Aesthetica Art Prize in 2016 and is in the longlist for the 2018 edition.
Mariana Pestana
Co-curator, The Future Starts Here
Mariana Pestana is co-curator of The Future Starts Here. She works as a curator in the Design, Architecture and Digital Department at the V&A and is co-director of The Decorators collective. Mariana has taught spatial and interactive design at Central Saint Martins, Chelsea College of Arts, and Royal College of Arts. In 2013, she curated The Real and Other Fictions for the Lisbon Architecture Triennale and in 2016, This Time Tomorrow for the V&A at the World Economic Forum.
Matteo Mastrandrea
Tutor in Architecture, Royal College of Art
Matteo Mastrandrea is an associate at Es Devlin Studio, where he designs stages and installations for opera, dance, theatre, fashion and music. He is a PhD candidate at Cambridge University, where his research interrogates the common ground shared between film, television, and architecture. He also teaches architecture at the Royal College of Art in London (alongside Nicola Koller and Tom Greenall), and is part of their 2018 publication, Manual for Redefining Reality.
Mike Layward
Artistic Director, DASH
Mike Layward has worked in the arts for nearly 40 years, as a performer, musician, carnival designer, maker, puppeteer, producer, director and live artist. Since 1999, Mike has been Artistic Director of DASH and has been instrumental in gaining a national reputation as the leading Disability Visual arts organisation in the UK. Mike’s philosophy is based on the belief that the arts are a vehicle for social change. Mike has an MA in Activism and Social Change (Leeds University) 2009.
Mike Stubbs
Director, FACT Liverpool
Mike Stubbs is the Director at FACT, Liverpool, a new media arts centre based on Wood Street in Liverpool, England. He was previously Head of Program for ACMI (Australian Centre of Moving Image) and Melbourne and Senior Research Fellow, Dundee University. He has commissioned and produced over 350 exhibition programmes and is also a moving image artist who has been shown at Baltic, Tate, BBC & C4. He was awarded a Fleck Fellowship, Banff, 2002.
Nicola Koller
Tutor in Architecture, Royal College of Art
Nicola is a designer working for acclaimed fashion designer Sir Paul Smith, designing and commissioning retail spaces worldwide. She heads an in-house multidisciplinary studio of furniture designers, interior designers, industrial designers and architects. Nicola has overseen and completed over 300 projects from concept to completion with Paul Smith in 24 countries. Nicola has been a tutor at the Royal College of Art since 2005 and teaches alongside Tom Greenall and Matteo Mastrandrea.
Nigel Walsh
Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Leeds Art Gallery
Nigel Walsh is currently Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Leeds Art Gallery He was previously Leeds Art Gallery’s first dedicated exhibitions curator, firstly as Assistant Keeper and then as Curator. In 2007 he moved to his current role as Collection Curator, with responsibility for the Gallery’s permanent art collection, generally thought to be “the best collection of 20th century British Art outside London.”
Noémi Varga
Filmmaker
Noémi Varga is a London based filmmaker and graduate of the Royal College of Art, where she specialised in Moving Image. Her work is mainly preoccupied with exploring the boundaries of conventional documentary filmmaking, applying the tools of cinematic storytelling to all her subjects. Her previous films have screened at the ICA, IFF Rotterdam, the BAFTA-Recognised Aesthetica Short Film Festival and the Ludwig Museum of Arts amongst others.
Olivier Richon
Professor of Photography, Royal College of Art
Olivier Richon is Professor of Photography at the Royal College of Art. His publications include Real Allegories (Steild 2006) and Punks (Gost books 2013). Kitchen Corner, a study of one photograph by Walker Evans from 1936, will be published by Afterall, One Work Series in Fall 2018. Last January, AkaYagara, a series made in Japan, was shown at Bendana Pinel Art Contemporain, Paris. Still, a series of allegorical still lives, was shown in at Galerie Albrecht, Berlin in March.
Patrick Allen (Session Host)
Senior Lecturer, New Media Design, University of Bradford
Patrick Allen is a Senior Lecturer in New Media Design and Programme Leader for BSc Web Design & Technology and MA Digital Arts & Media at the University of Bradford. Allen was awarded a PhD in Knowledge Based Systems, and has published research on augmented space and reality. As a Senior Fellow of the HEA, he uses a multidisciplinary approach to make sense of how to design, create and use new media in public space, and his teaching is informed by these studies.
Phoebe Roberts
Curator, The Artangel Collection
Phoebe looks after The Artangel Collection, a body of moving image works commissioned by Artangel over the last 25 years. Phoebe collaborates with the Tate and with curatorial colleagues across the UK to exhibit these works in new contexts. Alongside her work at Artangel, Phoebe is a freelance writer and curator. She produced the UK tour of “Seeing Voices”, and is producing “ECZEMA!” for National Theatre Wales in summer 2018. She has also written for a number of publications including British Vogue, Tate and The Independent.
Rachel Ara
Aesthetica Art Prize Winner, 2016
Conceptual and Data artist Rachel Ara graduated from Goldsmiths College where she won the prestigious Burston Award. In 2016 she won the Aesthetica Art Prize for This Much I’m Worth [the self-evaluating artwork]. Her work is nonconformist with a socio-political edge that incorporates humour with feminist and queer concerns. Rachel is currently artist in residence at the V&A and will be exhibiting at the Whitechapel Gallery (London Open), Barbican (New Commission) and the V&A (London Design Festival).
Rebekka Kill (Session Chair)
Head of School of Art, Design & Computer Science, York St John University
Dr Rebekka Kill joined York St John University in 2016 having previously held senior posts at Leeds Beckett University and Central St Martin’s. She was Chair of the Board at East Street Arts from 2013-2015 and is highly engaged with academic and practice-based communities in the region and nationally. During her career she has taught in a range of higher education contexts in both studio practice and also in critical and historical studies.
Scott Gray
World Photography Organisation and PHOTOFAIRS
Scott Gray serves as CEO & Founder of both World Photography Organisation and PHOTOFAIRS – an event dedicated to presenting fine art photography and moving image from leading international galleries – and has over 18 years’ experience in the photography, international art fair and event business, working across the world to raise the level of conversation around photography. In 2007, Gray launched the Sony World Photography Awards.
Skinder Hundal
Chief Executive, New Art Exchange
As Chief Executive of New Art Exchange in Nottingham, Skinder has successfully led the organisation through a significant period of growth and development to achieve a strong reputation for bringing an international standard of culturally diverse art to Hyson Green in Nottingham. Skinder has delivered many large-scale projects, including NESTA Digital Arts Research and Development project, Culture Cloud, TED Global and the Google Cultural Institute.
Steven Gartside
Curator, Holden Gallery
Dr Steven Gartside is the Curator at the Holden Gallery in Manchester, as well as a Research Fellow at Manchester School of Art. Previous work includes teaching in the School of Architecture at the University of Liverpool. He also runs the MA/MFA Contemporary Curating programme. Recent Holden Gallery exhibitions include: Model Behaviour, Trial/Error/Art, Up/Down and Urban Psychosis, working with artists such as Sophie Calle, Thomas Demand and Gillian Wearing.
Thomas Dukes
Curator, Open Eye Gallery
Thomas Dukes is the curator of Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool – a space founded in 1977 for people to explore photography’s unique ability to connect, to tell stories, to inquire, to reflect on humanity and to celebrate its diversity and creativity; offering dialogues around the medium. An MA in Arts, Aesthetics & Cultural Institutions at Liverpool University led to an internship with Karen Newman, who proved to be an ongoing inspiration in visual media, leading to his current role at Open Eye.
Tom Greenall
Architect and Associate Director, DSDHA
Tom Greenall is an architect and Associate Director at DSDHA – a London-based architecture, urbanism and research practice. Tom acts as a visiting critic at a number of UK institutions; is a tutor on the MA Design of Experiences programme at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam; and, since 2011, has taught in the School of Architecture at the Royal College of Art (alongside Matteo Mastrandrea and Nicola Koller). Tom was made a Chair of the Wandsworth Design Review Panel in 2017.
Tom Ivin
Director & Producer, VICE / i-D
As i-D’s in-house video director, Tom Ivin has documented a number of explosive youth culture scenes around the world, including underground ravers in Kiev, alternative LGBTQ+ nightlife in New York, and the family values of London’s most exclusive talent incubator, Fashion East; creating documentary, music video and talent-led content, pushing the boundaries of moving image in the age of the internet. He is currently Director & Producer at VICE and i-D.
Warren Fearn
Head of Programme, Design, York St John University
Warren began his career with an MA Furniture Design at Bucks University before becoming a freelance designer. The BBC offered him a position as a Virtual Set Designer to develop 3D virtual environments for television. He then set up his own company WAK Studios as Creative Director, working on commercial and educational projects for WWF, Sky, NHS and more. He is now Head of the Design Programme at York St John University.
Will Hudson
Innovation Director, HudsonBec Group
Will Hudson’s current role is Innovation Director at the HudsonBec Group, a group of companies that enable creativity to thrive. Companies within the group currently include It’s Nice That – a digital and printed platform that Will founded and directed from 2007 onwards as a way to champion emerging artists and share creativity inspiration through accessible and universal art forms. The list also includes creative agency Anyways and creative resource Lecture in Progress.
Zavier Ellis
Founder and Director, CHARLIE SMITH LONDON
Zavier Ellis developed an appetite for art at a very early age. He went onto read History of Modern Art at Manchester University before undertaking a Masters in Fine Art at City & Guilds of London Art School. Zavier is the founder and director of CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, a contemporary art gallery in Shoreditch that specialises in representing emerging to mid-career artists. He was also co-founder and co-curator of the annual show The Future Can Wait (2007-2017).