Portfolio Reviews at the Future Now Symposium 2026
These 1-1 sessions, hosted at York St. John University on Thursday 16 July 2026, are for practitioners working across all genres, including painting, photography, digital media, sculpture, video and more. Our industry experts provide essential guidance on how to develop ideas and further artists’ careers, as well as providing insights on funding opportunities and exhibition. Each session lasts 20 minutes. This is an opportunity to get key advice on any number of topics: how to accelerate your practice through digital platforms, how to approach curators and galleries, or simply discussing a portfolio in real time.
Reviewers for Thursday 16 July
Eleanor Sutherland
Aesthetica | 10:30-12:05
Eleanor joined Aesthetica in 2017. As the Creative Producer, she works across the magazine’s print and digital platforms, researching and writing about contemporary art. She loves discovering new creatives and sharing their work with readers around the world. Eleanor strives to make art accessible by using clear, engaging and assumption-free language. She studied Art History & English at the University of York and is passionate about computer science.
Kit Monkman
Viridian FX | 10:30-12:05
Kit Monkman is an innovator in screen-based art and interactive media. He is Director and Founder at Viridian FX, one of the leading VFX houses in the North of England – with credits such as HBO’s House of the Dragon and Netflix’s Heart of Stone. Kit directed Macbeth (2018) and the five-channel video The People We Love (2020). He is co-founder of KMA, transforming public spaces across the world. Kit has worked with big names, from Netflix to Sky.
Hannah Brady
Squidsoup | 10:30-12:05
Hannah Brady joined Squidsoup in 2019 as Creative Producer and was appointed Director in 2025. Bringing a specialism in delivering multi-partnered projects, she is responsible for producing a portfolio of thought provoking digital artworks. Hannah has delivered works with the arts collective Blast Theory, digital media centre Watershed and the producing house Situations. Her strengths lie in enabling collaboration between technologist and artist.
Carrie Chan
V&A | 13:30-15:05
Carrie Chan is Contemporary Programme Curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. She curates live programmes, site‑responsive installations and commissions including Wild Digits for Friday Lates, spotlighting UK-based digital arts practices actively shaping the scene, and V&A’s London Design Festival projects, foregrounding digital and material practices. Her practice bridges art, design and technology to animate museum space and audiences.
James Finch
Royal Academy of Arts | 13:30-15:05
Dr James Finch is a curator and art historian specialising in British art of the 19th and 20th centuries. He is currently Senior Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts and has published widely including, most recently, a book on the life and work of painter James McNeill Whistler. Previous roles include Curator, Historic & Modern Paintings and Drawings at the Fitzwilliam Museum, and Assistant Curator, Nineteenth Century British Art at Tate Britain.
Nephertiti Oboshie Schandorf
Wellcome Collection | 13:30-15:05
Nephertiti Oboshie Schandorf is a British-Ghanaian producer of site-responsive performance, audio, and moving image in non-gallery contexts. Her practice seeks collaboration and is informed by the formation of protective networks. She serves on the Art on the Underground Advisory Panel and is Engagement and Participation Lead at the Wellcome Collection. She is also a Trustee of Artichoke, and Former Artistic Director of Peckham Platform.
Poppy Bowers
The Whitworth | 13:30-15:05
Poppy Bowers is a contemporary art curator and currently Senior Curator of Exhibitions at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester. She has worked with many artists on several large-scale projects over the years including Alison Wilding, Barbara Walker, Imran Perretta, Isaac Julien, Richard Tuttle and William Kentridge, and is currently working with Yuki Kihara on a new iteration of the artist’s installation exhibition Paradise Camp.
Sarah Coulson
Yorkshire Sculpture Park | 13:30-15:05
Sarah Coulson is Senior Curator and Publications Lead at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Yorkshire. She has curated several major exhibitions and off‑site projects including Saad Qureshi’s museum debut and YSP’s Chapel programmes, and collaborates with both artists and renowned poets on site‑responsive commissions while shaping publications and public initiatives that connect contemporary sculpture with the natural landscape and international audiences.
Taous Dahmani
The Photographers’ Gallery | 13:30-15:05
Dr Taous R. Dahmani is a London-based French, British, and Algerian art historian and a Curator at The Photographers’ Gallery, London, who specialises in photography and contemporary visual culture. She has curated many international exhibitions including Unstable Point at Jaou Tunis Biennale and solo shows such as SMITH at NOUA. She continues to contribute to publications and programmes that explore photography’s political and cultural resonances.
Eleanor Sutherland
Aesthetica | 14:00-15:35
Eleanor joined Aesthetica in 2017. As the Creative Producer, she works across the magazine’s print and digital platforms, researching and writing about contemporary art. She loves discovering new creatives and sharing their work with readers around the world. Eleanor strives to make art accessible by using clear, engaging and assumption-free language. She studied Art History & English at the University of York and is passionate about computer science.
Hannah Starkey
Artist & Photographer | 14:00-15:35
Hannah Starkey has had numerous solo exhibitions across the world. Her work has been included in Tate Modern, London; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York; Turner Contemporary, Margate; Huis Marseille, Amsterdam; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and The Hepworth Wakefield, amongst others. She has received coverage in The Guardian, The Telegraph and The New York Times, amongst many others.
Dr Ope Lori
PILAA | 14:00-15:35
Dr Ope Lori is the Founder and CEO of Pre-Image Learning and Action, an arts & diversity consultancy. She was a Lecturer at Chelsea School of Arts, Leeds Arts University and a guest Lecturer at the RCA. She specialises in lens-based media, on race, gender and desire in her political practice. She is the author of the boundary-breaking book Beyond the Feminine: The Politics of Skin Colour and Gender in Visual Culture, published by Bloomsbury, in July 2025.
Dr Gabrielle Barkess-Kerr
Academic, Anthropologist & Curator | 14:00-15:35
Dr Gabrielle Barkess-Kerr is Founder of The Curatorial Ethics Network for Contemporary Art Curators, dedicated to fostering integrity, accountability and inclusivity within the arts. She is a Teaching Fellow at Edinburgh College of Art. Her own curatorial practice spans exhibitions, art films and public programming, emphasising innovative concepts, multimedia projects, and engaging narratives that resonate with diverse audiences.
Griselda Goldsbrough
Visual Artist | 16:00-17:35
Griselda Goldsbrough is a visual artist and writer. She is committed to cultural and creative activity in community engagement projects within heritage, science, museums, galleries and healthcare. She is also Art and Design Development Manager at York Hospital, where she has worked since 2016. Griselda has been involved in the Aesthetica Art Prize for several years, working alongside the team to recognise and champion new talent.
Sam Rushton
Arts Council England | 16:00-17:35
Sam Rushton is a Visual Arts Relationship Manager at Arts Council England. Based in Yorkshire, he has previously worked at places like the BBC, the British Council and Creative UK, with a focus on supporting artists across the country in visual and digital arts, as well as in theatres and on the screen. Prior to ACE, Sam worked as a freelance artist in the North, and has applied – and been successful – in funding applications to the Arts Council.
Pierre Saurisse
Sotheby’s Institute of Art | 16:00-17:35
Dr Pierre Saurisse is a Senior Lecturer for the MA Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London. He is the author of Performance in the Museum (Lund Humphries, 2025) and La Mécanique du hasard, a book on art and chance around 1960 (2007). He completed his PhD in France, and has taught contemporary art at Aix-Marseilles University. Over the past years, his research has primarily concentrated on performance art.
Hadeel Eltayeb
The Design Museum | 16:00-17:35
Hadeel Eltayeb is a curator who explores identity and cultural production. She is Displays Curator at The Design Museum. Past roles include as Associate Curator at The Media Majlis at Northwestern University in Qatar, and Curator and Arts Manager Al Riwaq Art Space in Bahrain. She was a 2019 Research fellow of the British Council at Venice Biennale. She has specialised in oral history projects and art from South West Asia and North Africa.
Dr Ope Lori
PILAA | 16:00-17:35
Dr Ope Lori is the Founder and CEO of Pre-Image Learning and Action, an arts & diversity consultancy. She was a Lecturer at Chelsea School of Arts, Leeds Arts University and a guest Lecturer at the RCA. She specialises in lens-based media, on race, gender and desire in her political practice. She is the author of the boundary-breaking book Beyond the Feminine: The Politics of Skin Colour and Gender in Visual Culture, published by Bloomsbury, in July 2025.
Sammara Abbasi
16:00-17:35
Sammara Abbasi is the former Curatorial Assistant, Exhibitions & Live Programmes, at Modern Art Oxford. Born and raised in West London, she graduated with a BA in Art History and an MA in Museum Studies from University College London, where she worked as a Research Assistant to the Socialist Anthropocene in the Visual Arts project. Sammara has an interest in art, curation, culture and heritage, and has held roles at Whitechapel Gallery.