Barbara Poček - Programme Facilitator 

Barbara Poček has been collaborating with Ljubljanas Glej theatre since 2010. She is a member of the Glej’s Artistic Council, Programme Coordinator of the TRIGGER platform and takes care of internationalisation projects, executive production and the Resident Programme. She was one of the co-founders of the open platform for the promotion of contemporary illustration, Biennial of Independents (2007-2015) and of the educational platform Design Biotop (2013-2019), which promotes design as a tool for strategic solutions to social and economic challenges. She nurtures an interest in the intersections between different media and disciplines, and therefore maintains a broad spectrum of activities fostering connections between different social and professional communities.

Between 2017 and 2022, she was a member of the Board of Directors of IETM (International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts) and in 2022 she joined the IETM Team as the coordinator of the Local Journeys for change and the Green School programmes.

Mike van Graan - Programme Facilitator and Mentor

Mike van Graan is a South African playwright with vast experience in cultural policy, building networks and advocacy. After the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994, he was appointed as a Special Advisor to the minister responsible for arts and culture, where he played an influential role in helping to develop post-apartheid cultural policies.

Mike was the founding Secretary General of Arterial Network, a pan-African organisation advocating for the cultural dimension of development, human rights and democracy. He served on the expert facility of UNESCO’s 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions from 2011-2018. Since March 2018, he has helped to devise the programme and to facilitate the Atelier for Festival Managers, a project initiated by the European Festivals Association. He produced the toolkit Beyond Curiosity and Desire: Towards Fairer International Cultural Collaboration in association with IETM, On the Move and Dutch Culture.

As a playwright with 36 plays under his belt, he is regarded as one of South Africa’s foremost contemporary playwrights having garnered numerous awards and nominations for his work.

Dr Vishwas Satgar - Speaker

Dr Vishwas Satgar is an Associate Professor of International Relations, editor of the Democratic Marxism series and principal investigator for Emancipatory Futures Studies in the Anthropocene at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. He is a veteran activist and co-founder of the South African Food Sovereignty Campaign and Climate Justice Charter Movement.

Sarah O'Hare - Workshop Facilitator 

With a background in co-design and engagement, Sarah works with Creative Carbon Scotland as Green Arts Officer. She leads the development and delivery of training and events, in particular with members of our flagship Green Arts Initiative, as well as contributing to our wider Green Arts programme supporting cultural organisations and artists in addressing the climate emergency. Prior to her work with CCS, Sarah worked on projects such as Scotland’s Young People’s Forest, the first forest in Scotland co-designed by young people. She also worked on the COP26 Co-Design Group, and the National Youth Arts Advisory Group, as well as projects with the Scottish Government, NHS Lothian, and Transport Scotland. Whilst working, she completed service design training with the Service Design Academy, which grew her interest in participatory learning and dealing with complex challenges collaboratively. She also completed the 2050 Climate Group Young Leaders Development Programme in 2021.

Emmanuelle Lejeune - Workshop Facilitator and Mentor

After studying cultural policies, Emmanuelle Lejeune became particularly interested in the ecological and social transition in the performing arts. She first explored sustainability issues at the Paris Opera, before moving on to the European level and working in culture and education, as well as on the New European Bauhaus initiative. She is now in charge of the Sustainability Strategy of the Théâtre de Liège (Belgium) and leads the European project STAGES, focusing on the creation of a protocol to help theatres analyse and transform their buildings and working practices, using the Doughnut Economics.

Iphigenia Taxopoulou - Workshop Facilitator and Mentor

Iphigenia Taxopoulou is a founding member and general secretary of the European theatre network mitos21. She has worked in theatre as a literary advisor, programming consultant and international projects manager in Greece and abroad for several years. She is an experienced sustainability consultant, lecturer and educator and an associate partner of Julie’s Bicycle, the UK-based charity that mobilises the arts and culture to take action on climate change. She holds a degree in Philology & Modern Greek Studies from Aristotle University (Thessaloniki) and an MA in Cultural Management & Theatre Criticism from City University of London. Her book Sustainable Theatre: Theory, Context, Practice was published by Bloomsbury/Methuen Drama in May 2023. 

Caro Overy - Mentor

Caro has an interdisciplinary background including seven years’ experience in higher education in sustainability, working with staff and students to develop and deliver programmes and projects for a socially responsible and sustainable university. As Green Arts Manager, she currently leads Creative Carbon Scotland’s Green Arts work, supporting cultural organisations and artists across Scotland to address the climate emergency.
 

Thiago Jesus - Mentor

Thiago Jesus is a creative producer and researcher. For over ten years, he has managed international creative projects and interdisciplinary research at People’s Palace Projects, Queen Mary University of London, in collaboration with artists, academics, activists, and local communities in ten countries. Since 2014, as the head of PPP’s Indigenous Exchange and Climate Action projects, Thiago has been working closely with Indigenous peoples from the Xingu Territory - in the Brazilian Amazon’s ‘arc of deforestation’ - leading an exchange programme for the preservation of indigenous cultural practices as a key factor in safeguarding these communities from the climate crisis. Thiago is an associate of Julie’s Bicycle’s Creative and Climate Leadership programme, an international training and transformation programme to empower artists and cultural professionals to take action on the climate and ecological crisis with impact, creativity, and resilience. He has project-managed the training in the UK, Belgium and Australia. Thiago is doing doctoral research at Queen Mary University of London, funded by the AHRC (LAHP Collaborative Doctoral Awards). The study, ‘The Art of Creating Climates’, investigates how third-sector organisations with arts and environment at the heart of their programmes approach climate change and respond to environmental issues in distinct North and South contexts, in partnership with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and Inhotim Institute in Brazil. Thiago holds an MA in Visual Culture (University of Westminster) and a BA in Media and Communications (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Pedro Affonso Ivo Franco - Mentor

Pedro Affonso Ivo Franco is a Brazilian Berlin-based musician, consultant and researcher working across the cultural, climate action and international cooperation sectors. His areas of expertise include culture and sustainable development, decolonial approaches to climate and the intersection between artivism and climate justice. For over a decade, Pedro has delivered services to International Organisations, Governments, Cultural and Climate Institutions and artists. Through IETM and previous assignments, Pedro has coached performing artists to raise awareness about climate change and climate justice issues, making them reflect on the role performing arts can have in these discussions and mainly, supporting artists and institutions in designing, implementing and strengthening initiatives to address climate-related issues through their artistic offer. Pedro is also a consultant for the 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

Máté Tenke – Mentor

Máté Tenke is the coordinator of IETM’s Environmental Working Group and the head of PP Green, the sustainability pillar of Pro Progressione, a Budapest-based cultural hub. As such, he has been co-creating strategies on how the cultural sector can become environmentally sustainable and a catalyst for social change. He also gained expertise in coordinating culturally diverse and cross-disciplinary partnerships via co-managing environmentally engaged, Creative Europe and Erasmus+ funded cultural projects. Among others, he collaborated with civil society organisations, universities, policy makers, and environmental NGOs such as Greenpeace, WWF and The Shift Project. He has also been active on the topics of climate justice and degrowth as a founding member of Creative Degrowth Network Scotland, author of the IETM report ‘Indigenous Ecological Knowledge’ and a forthcoming article on doughnut economics in the philosophy journal Contralytic.

With a background in Applied Theatre and Environmental Policy, he is dedicated to synchronising policy-making and grassroots action to tackle the ecological crisis, with a focus on empowering artists and cultural professionals to become a driving force in the systemic, inclusive, and sustainable transformation of society.

Pippa Bailey -  Independent producer/director/consultant

Pippa is committed to connecting artistic practice to plans for a fairer future where Climate Justice leads.

Pippa started her career as an actor and reporter/producer with SBSTV. She held leading roles in the UK including The Museum Of London's South Bank, oh!art at Oxford House in Bethnal Green, The World Famous - company of pyrotechnicians and Total Theatre Awards at Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Since 2013, Pippa has worked as Senior Producer with Performing Lines, Sydney Festival and in the First Nations team at Carriageworks. As Director/Producer for ChangeFest 2019-21, she worked in collaboration with Elders and communities to create events that imagine systems change and rehearse fairer futures.

Pippa is currently working as an independent producer with First Nations artists and a consultant focused on green transition. She is an alumni of Julie's Bicycle Creative Climate Leadership training, co-convenes the Cultural Gardeners – Australian Cultural Alliance for Climate Justice, is a coordinator with Culture Declares Emergency UK, member of Collaborative Futures and a board Director of Theatre Network NSW and IETM – International Network for the Performing Arts.

Her expertise for Green School is taking a holistic approach to transition, the role of artists and creative practice, developing imagination for systems change and a net zero future, plus shifting existing power dynamics and finding ways to rehearse a better future.