| Mike van Graan is an Associate Professor in the University of Cape Town, a UNESCO Expert on the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions and the President of the African Cultural Policy Network. After South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, he was appointed as a Special Adviser to the first minister responsible for arts and culture where he played an influential role in shaping post-apartheid cultural policies. He was the founding Secretary General of Arterial Network, a Pan African network of artists, cultural activists and creative enterprises. He is the 2018 recipient of the Hiroshima Foundation for Peace and Culture Award for his contribution to the fight against apartheid, and the building of post-apartheid society. Mike is considered as one of South Africa’s leading contemporary playwrights, having garnered numerous nominations and awards for his plays that interrogate the post-apartheid South African condition. |
| Judith Knight is the founder and co-director of Artsadmin which she set up in 1979. Over the last 40 years, the organisation has supported and produced the work of contemporary artists and companies working across all artistic disciplines. Artsadmin has developed its base at Toynbee Studios in East London into a centre for the creation and development of new work, with rehearsal spaces, free advisory service, bursary scheme, education programme, residencies, showcases, workshops and performances. Judith has produced numerous projects nationally and internationally, many of which have been site-specific pieces in locations all over the world. She works with the Imagine 2020 European Network producing artists’ projects about climate change, including Artsadmin’s Two Degrees Festival and associated projects. Most recently she has been working in collaboration with Julie's Bicycle and Battersea Arts Centre to bring about the national 'Season for Change' of artistic work focusing on the environment. |
| Gundega Laivina runs New Theatre Institute of Latvia, a project based organisation working in the field of contemporary performing arts. Since 2009 she is artistic and managing director of Homo Novus, International Festival of Contemporary Theatre. Gundega has studied music, theory of culture and social anthropology. In 2011 and 2015 she was a curator of Latvian National exposition at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space; from 2010 till 2014, she was a member of the artistic board of Riga – European Capital of Culture 2014 being particularly responsible for site-specific initiatives and artistic practices involving non-professionals. |
| Ása Richardsdóttir has been the Secretary General of IETM since March 2019. She has led a versatile career in the performing arts, culture, academia, banking, politics and media. She was a television reporter at RÚV Iceland, founder of theatre, Kaffileikhusid, executive director of Iceland Dance Company, president of Performing Arts Iceland and producer of various artistic projects and international collaborations. Her latest project was to lead the ICE HOT Nordic Dance Platform in Reykjavík, Iceland, this last December. Ása has been politically active, served as city councillor 2014-2018 for the Icelandic Social Democratic Party and has been member and chair of several boards in politics, finance and arts. She is co-author of the guide for artists and producers It Starts With a Conversation. |
| Nan van Houte is a cultural manager with an academic background and 40 years of professional experience in arts and culture. She has been active as director of theatre venues, developer of interdisciplinary programs and cultural policies, dramaturge, tutor and journalist. Her focus on the creation of a more inclusive arts sector and the impact of arts on societal issues, got an international dimension in her position as Secretary General of IETM, which she held until March 2019. She is chair of the Board of Dancing on the Edge (festival, research and development of artistic exchange with Middle East and North Africa) and Board member of LaBenevolencija (humanitarian tools foundation empowering people and groups to encounter hate speech). As dramaturg and producer, she is working for Breaking the Silence, a multi-annual, multinational theatre production in Cambodia and Rwanda. |
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