Patrick Sam

Katrina Stuart Santiago

Ahmad Naser Sarmast

Anupama Sekhar

Anasuya Sengupta

Volodymyr Sheiko

Vicensia Shule

Eline Wernberg Sigfusson

Åsa Simma

Rupa Subramaniam

Karin Svanborg-Sjövall

Anni Syrjäläinen

Alison Tickell

Julie Trébault

Paula Tuovinen

Anthony Turua

László Upor

No speakers

Kim West

Sara Whyatt

Alexandra Xanthaki

Kira Xonorika

Liwaa Yazji

Trinidad Zaldivar

Dr Haris Agic holds a PhD in social anthropology and has a history of working as a university affiliated researcher and teacher, public educator, writer/debater, development leader, cultural entrepreneur and freelance speaker. He is also active as a songwriter and artist. Something that characterises Dr Agic's talks as well as his artistic work is his background as a war child and a refugee from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Dr Agic has knowledge of and passionate interest in everything from qualitative research/investigation and report writing to expertise in inclusion, democracy, public education, racism and social sustainability issues in general, as well as arts, culture and the importance of culture for health, public health and society in general.

Today, Dr Agic works as a strategist for democracy and inclusion at the Culture and Leisure Office at Norrköping municipality. In addition, he freelances as a lecturer and writer with a series of columns and debate articles in his portfolio on the theme of democracy, inclusion as well as arts, culture and cultural politics.

Mr Olu Alake is an internationally renowned strategic leader with a strong commitment to helping generate positive social change. He is currently Director of November Ventures, a consultancy that specialises in cultural policy, arts and diversity programmes and events; and the Chief Executive Officer at The Peel Institute, a charity in London that uses the power of culture, arts and heritage to connect local communities. Mr Alake is the President Emeritus of 100 Black Men of London, a community development charitable organisation providing lifetime mentoring services for people of African descent to achieve education excellence, health and wellness, economic empowerment and leadership development. He is also a trustee of The Reader Organisation, a literature development charity. Mr Alake has designed and delivered several programmes and cultural policy initiatives for creative sector and youth-oriented organisations. He was previously head of Cultural Diversity for Arts Council England; Director of English Regions, Commission for Racial Equality; Director of Grants Programmes & Project Development, Buttle UK; and strategic grants lead for The London Marathon Charitable Trust, which focusses on increasing opportunities for physical activity for thousands of ‘disadvantaged’ communities.

Time Magazine Person of the Year 2018 and CASE Art Fund’s Humanitarian of the Year 2021, photographer and writer Shahidul Alam obtained a PhD in chemistry before switching to photography in 1983. He has been documenting the struggle for democracy in Bangladesh ever since. He has received the highest national award given to Bangladeshi artists.

Exhibited at MOMA, Centre Pompidou and Tate Modern and a speaker at Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge universities, Dr Alam is a professor at RMIT and Sunderland Universities and an Honorary Fellow of Royal Photographic Society. He chaired the international jury of World Press Photo. Dr Alam’s The Tide Will Turn was featured on the list of Best Art Books of 2020 by The New York Times.

An institution builder, Dr Alam also introduced email to Bangladesh. He was arrested in 2018 for criticising his government but released following a global campaign.

Ms Liza Alexandrova-Zorina is a writer and journalist born in 1984 in Russia. She grew up in a small Soviet town close to the border to Finland. She has published several books in Russian, which have been translated into over five languages. In Sweden, her book Imperiets barn  (Children of the Empire) was published, which is about the Russian-speaking parallel society in Sweden. She writes for international and Swedish media, including Expressen, Sydsvenska Dagbladet and Swedish Public Radio. She started living part-time in Sweden in 2016 and has lived in Sweden full-time since 2021 when the human rights organisation she was involved with was banned.

Brook Garru Andrew (Wiradjuri/Celtic, Australia) is an artist, scholar and curator who is driven by the collisions of intertwined narratives, often emerging from the mess of the “Colonial Hole”. He was Artistic Director of NIRIN, the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, 2020, and is currently Enterprise Professor, Interdisciplinary Practice at the University of Melbourne; Associate Professor, Fine Art at Monash University; and Associate Researcher at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Brook is represented by Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne; Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney; and Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris and Brussels.

Minister of Culture of Buenos Aires since 2018, Mr Avogadro is the former Deputy Minister of Culture of Argentina and, previously, Undersecretary of Creative Economy and Director of the Metropolitan Center for Design in the City Government. He is a specialist in cultural policies and in the promotion of cultural and creative industries. He has a BA in International Studies and a Master in Administration and Public Policy. He is a regular contributor to creative cities and other creative economy related publications and events.

Mr Avogadro holds a BA in International Studies from Torcuato Di Tella University and MA in Public Administration from the University of San Andrés, and in Content Management from the Austral University of Argentina (both thesis in development). Specialist in Creative Economy with experience in the Development of Policies for the Promotion of Entrepreneurial Culture and Creative Industries.

He began his professional career as an analyst at the Undersecretariat of the Office of Foreign Trade. He was then General Director of Foreign Trade in the Ministry of Economic Development of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires. He was also CEO of Creative Industries, foreign Trade and the Metropolitan Design Center in the Government of the City of Buenos Aires. In the year 2014, with the Creation of the Undersecretariat of Creative Economy in the Government of the City of Buenos Aires, he became Undersecretary.

He was a member of the International Advisory Board of Seoul World Capital of Design 2010, jury of the Observeur French Design Prize in 2011, and jury of the Pure Design Fair in 2012.

Dr Vladyslav Berkovski is the Executive Director of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation. He is a specialist in public policy in the field of cultural heritage protection and a Candidate of Historical Sciences (PhD in History). Dr Berkovski graduated from the National University of Ostroh Academy, and between 2001 and 2006, he studied in the graduate school of the Department of History of 16th-18th centuries at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (MCSU) in Lublin, Poland). In February 2012, Dr Berkovski graduated in Management of Social Development from the National Academy for Public Administration of the President of Ukraine. Between 2010 and 2021, He headed the central state archives, working on the preservation and promotion of archival and museum cultural heritage. Moreover, he curated several dozens of photo-documentary exhibitions at the national and international levels. He is the author of about 300 scientific papers in the field of archival studies, editorial archaeography, local lore and history, and economic history of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Mr Marlon Ariyasinghe is a masters graduate in English literature from the University of Geneva. He is an actor and director and the author of Froteztology (2011). He is the Senior Assistant Editor of Himal Southasian and the secretary of the Sri Lanka Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies. He is a co-editor of Mise en Abyme International Journal of Comparative Literature and Arts (VIII, Issue 2), special edition on Sri Lankan combative art, Angampora.

Ms Ouafa Belgacem is the founder of Culture Funding Watch, an enterprise dedicated to intelligence gathering and monitoring of financial support offered to arts and creative enterprises in the Global South. She is a senior business development expert with over 15 years of experience in designing and financing international cooperation and development programmes in various contexts (in Africa, Asia and the MENA/Middle East and North Africa region).

Ms Belgacem has authored (or co-authored) several publications about the cultural ad creative industries including the Cultural policy report - Tunisia, Rapid mapping of cultural policies in the MENA region (2019), Creative economy study - Tunisia (2019) and UNESCO’s Creative Economy report (2013). She has been named among the 100 most influential creatives of African descent 2021; 500 Most Powerful Africans 2022; Digital Africa Programme Connector/Ambassador for the North Africa region; and, Creative Director at the Pan-African Chamber of Commerce.

In 2019, Mr Simon Brault’s mandate as Director and CEO of the Canada Council for the Arts was renewed for four years. He has been at the head of the Council since 2014.  Also in 2019, Mr Brault became the first Canadian to be elected Chair of the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA).

Mr Brault has been active in the cultural sector for over 30 years and has been a driving force behind several major projects. His first non-fiction book, Le facteur C: l’avenir passe par la culture (La Presse/Éditions Voix parallèles, 2009) explained the dramatic rise of cultural concerns in the public agenda. This work was published in English as No Culture, No Future (Cormorant Books, 2010).

Mr Brault delivers many speeches at national and international venues every year. He has received numerous distinctions for his commitment to the social recognition of the arts and culture, including the Order of Canada and the National Order of Quebec (l'Ordre national du Québec)

Ms Sarah Abdu Bushra is a curator of visual and performing arts exhibitions. Her research interest lies in sensing the lived experiences of artists in East African locality, and documenting their underlying ties towards building alliances that emerge as rooted arts ecosystems. She works to sharpen the East African gaze centring its archives as well as post-contemporary practices of art making, contributing to the plurality of existing narratives concerning exhibition making and curatorial praxis.

Ms Bushra works at a family-run bookstore and publishing house, Ankeboot Publishing, that explores books as repository and mutating site of knowledge production. She's a co-founder of Contemporary Nights, a curatorial collective facilitating research based and process-driven collaborative praxis.

Ms Romana Cacchioli is Executive Director of PEN International. She joined the organisation in March 2014 as Director of International Programs. Ms Cacchioli has twenty years of experience working in human rights, including with Anti-Slavery International where she led their Programs and Advocacy team in advocating for reform in law and policy and seeking redress through national courts for those affected by slavery.

Ms Renata Carvalho is an actress, theatre maker and transpologist (transgender anthropologist). Ms Carvalho founded MONART (National Movement of Trans Artists), which promotes trans representativeness and fights for the inclusion of trans bodies in arts, culture and society. She created the Trans Representativeness Manifesto which challenges the practice of ‘transfake’ (when trans roles are played by cisgender actors), and is also responsible for COLETIVO T, the first art collective formed solely by transgender artists in São Paulo. In the past, Ms Carvalho has been a pro-LGBT activist and has worked with the Secretary for Health, Santos City to raise awareness on the prevention of STIs, HIV / AIDS, hepatitis and tuberculosis, working specifically with travesti and trans women in prostitution. She is currently pursuing the social sciences to expand her work as an artist and transpologist.

Mr. Christian Christensen is Professor of Journalism Studies in the Department for Media Studies at Stockholm University. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in the US. Mr. Christensen’s research interests include journalism and politics, transparency, Islamophobia and journalism and technology. He has been the leader of externally financed projects (including a recent project on COVID and minorities in Stockholm) and has participated in other multi-national research projects. He is the author of a large number of peer-reviewed journal articles, international book chapters, and has been the editor/co-editor of a number of edited international book collections. Mr. Christensen is also a regular contributor of opinion pieces to major international news outlets, with articles published in The Guardian, Washington Post, Le Monde Diplomatique, Al Jazeera, NBC News, Dagens Nyheter, Expressen and others. 

Ms Katarina Renman Claesson is a lawyer, author, researcher, and lecturer. Since the beginning of the 2000s, she has specialised in intellectual property and art law issues, with a particular interest in artistic freedom. She is a counselling lawyer at the Swedish Artists' Association of Sweden and handles all the legal complications that their members - professional visual artists, crafts artists and designers - encounter in their daily lives. She lectures, writes, and conducts research in intellectual property law with a focus on copyright and art law (including artistic freedom). When publishing the book, Konstjuridik she introduced art law (Konstjuridik) as a legal field in Sweden. She is responsible for the academic masters’ course in art law at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics at Stockholm University and for the course in art law and economy at Malmö Art Academy at Lund university.

Ms Laurence Cuny is a human rights lawyer and researcher specialised in cultural rights and artistic freedom. After working as a teaching assistant in international public law at the Geneva Graduate Institute, she worked as an independent consultant for civil society and international organisations. This included collaborations with the UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights on three occasions for the 2013 (artistic freedom), 2014 (advertising) and 2019 (public spaces) reports. As a member of the UNESCO Expert Facility on the 2005 Convention for the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, Ms Cuny authored the report Freedom & Creativity: Defending Art, Defending Diversity (2020). Other recent publications include Rights: International, regional and national legal frameworks for the protection of artistic freedom (2019) and Relocating Artists at Risk in Latin America (2021). She is a member of the UNESCO Chair on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions at Laval University, Faculty of Law in Quebec and an associate member of the Fribourg Observatory of Diversity and Cultural Rights in Switzerland. At a local level, Ms Cuny is involved in community broadcasting, soundscape and a contemporary art biennale in France.

Ms Kristin Danielsen started her career as a dancer and choreographer and was educated at the Norwegian Ballet Academy, Oslo, and Ballet Arts/Broadway Dance Centre, New York. She later completed a master’s degree in arts management at City, University of London, specialising in international cultural relations. After completing university, she joined Visiting Arts as a project manager.

Ms Danielsen has managed a wide range of art institutions and cultural businesses within dance, theatre, literature and music. She was general manager at the Black Box Theatre, the Society of New Music and the Norwegian Music Information Center (now Music Norway). Before joining Arts and Culture Norway, Ms Danielsen was CEO of Deichman Library, Norway’s largest public library. She has been a guest lecturer at the BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo and has taught audience development and arts management at the University of Tromsø.

Ms Danielsen currently serves as the Deputy Chair of the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA).

Ms Andrea Dempster Chung is the co-founder and Executive Director of Kingston Creative, an Arts NGO whose mission is to use art to achieve social and economic transformation. Ms Dempster Chung is the founder of Bookophilia, a bookstore and cafe that promotes Caribbean authors and was the head of the Arts portfolio for the British Council in Jamaica, where she implemented key projects in film, literature, and visual art. Ms Dempster Chung has held senior roles within the Government of Jamaica as well as the private sector and she currently serves on the board of the Jamaica Conservation and Development Trust (JCDT) that manages the Blue Mountains, a UNESCO World Heritage site.  She previously served on the boards of the Jamaica Social Investment Fund, The National Land Agency, and the Public Health Committee of Jamaica. Ms Dempster Chung holds a Master of Science in structural engineering and a Bachelor of Science in civil and environmental engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She has studied art and finance at the Sotheby’s School of Art in London, finance at the Stanford School of Business in California, is a certified project manager and was featured recently in Forbes magazine as one of 10 women leading the charge for a sustainable future for Jamaica. 

Ms Mary Ann DeVlieg is currently a PhD candidate regarding at-risk relocated artists and a conference curator and consultant on artistic freedom.  She was a case worker for persecuted artists since 2009 and for many years worked as an initiator, advisor and evaluator of international collaborative cultural projects.  She was a founder/co-founder of international several initiatives such as IARA (International Arts Rights Advisors), the EU working group Arts-Rights-Justice, the Arts-Rights-Justice Academy and Library at the University of Hildesheim.

A former Secretary General of IETM (1994-2013), the International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts, Ms DeVlieg founded On the Move, a network and resource for artists’ international mobility and co-founded the Roberto Cimetta Fund for Mobility in the Mediterranean. She is Board member of Ettijahat – Independent Culture, has been advising the annual Malmö Safe Havens conference for artists, activists and policy makers since 2013, and with Sara Whyatt collaborates on artistic freedom projects for the Council of Europe. She represents IARA at the EU Temporary Relocation Platform (EUTRP).

Diane Dodd is a Regional Adviser for IFACCA, having supported the coordination of the European Chapter of IFACCA for more than 10 years. In addition to her work with IFACCA she is President and co-Founder of IGCAT (International Institute of Gastronomy, Culture, Arts and Tourism) and she leads an MA course in Cultural Institutions and Policies for the International University of Catalonia in Barcelona as well as an MA course on Events and Destination management for EUHTSTPol. Diane has worked in the cultural policy and management field for over 25 years and maintains relations with a number of important global and European institutions including UNESCO, UNWTO, European Commission, OEI, Commonwealth Foundation, Asia-Europe Foundation and many others. Earlier in her career she helped IFACCA create ConnectCP – an international online database of experts on cultural policy, planning and research which gave international networking opportunities to more than 1,200 experts from 128 countries. She has edited a number of books in the field of cultural policy and cultural management on subjects related to cultural management training, youth culture, eCulture, cultural citizenship and cultural tourism.

Ms Denise Dora is currently Regional Director for Article 19, an international organization that defends freedom of expression and information. She holds a Master’s degree in international human rights law from the University of Essex, UK, and a MA in History, Politics and Cultural Goods from Fundação Getulio Vargas, Brazil. She is a co-founder of THEMIS - Gender, Justice and Human Rights, an organization with 30 years of community justice programs focused on women's rights and legal empowerment in Brazil.

Ms Dora held the position of Ombudsperson for the Public Defender's Office of Rio Grande do Sul (2015 - 2017), and serves on the boards of the Ibirapitanga Institute, Conectas Human Rights and NAMATI.

Ms Basma El Husseiny is a cultural manager, an activist for social change and a defender of cultural rights.

For the past 30 years, Ms El Husseiny has been involved in supporting independent cultural projects and organisations in the Arab region. In 2004, she founded Al Mawred Al Thaqafy (Culture Resource), the first non-governmental regional cultural organisation in the Arab region. In 2007, she initiated and co-founded the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC), the region’s first independent cultural foundation. She currently leads the organisation, Action for Hope, which she founded in 2015 to address the cultural and social needs of distressed and displaced communities in the Arab region.

Between 1988 and 2003, Ms El Husseiny worked for the British Council in Egypt and the Ford Foundation in the Middle East and North Africa.

Ms El Husseiny is a UNESCO expert in cultural governance since 2011. In October 2018, she won the UCLG Agenda21 for Culture International Award in Mexico City for her contribution to the relationship between culture and sustainable development.

Previously a filmmaker, Mr Fredrik Elg is now a strategic developer in the field of arts and culture. Mr Elg specialises in issues concerning democracy, inclusion, and freedom of speech, at the crossroads of arts and human rights. He has managed independent arts organisations, worked for the Swedish Arts Council, Malmö City and partnered with several global organisations on democracy and freedom of speech, as well as conceptualised and launched the Safe Havens Conference for creative professionals under threat. Mr Elg has developed initiatives for inclusion, democracy and free speech for more than 15 years within an array of cultural fields, such as museums and libraries. He is the secretary of ICOM Sweden, and one of the founders and general manager of the non-profit organisation Safe Havens Freedom Talks (SH|FT). Mr Elg has studied arts, journalism and social studies at Lund University, Malmö University and at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

After training and working as a theatre director, Mr Ben Evans became Director of Theatre at London's Ovalhouse – a theatre with a rich tradition of supporting emerging artists who sit outside of mainstream culture: including artists of colour, deaf and disabled artists, and LGBTQI+ artists. Mr Evans then became creative director of BeCreative, an independent production company, working on a variety on international projects including producing the inaugural Lagos Theatre Festival in Nigeria.

Mr Evans first joined the British Council’s Drama & Dance team in 2011, and subsequently was the British Council’s Head of Arts in Portugal before taking his current role in 2015.  He now leads the British Council’s Arts & Disability programme across the EU region, including bilateral artistic programs, a region-wide programme for cultural policymakers, and Europe Beyond Access – one of the largest trans-national arts and disability projects in the world. Mr Evans is one of the co-authors of Disabled Artists in the Mainstream: A new cultural agenda for Europe – an outcome of the European Arts & Disability Cluster of which he is currently the interim coordinator.

Dr Hilmar Farid is the Director General of Culture at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia. He also serves as the President Commissioner of the state-owned publishing company Balai Pustaka (2020 - present). Dr Farid is a lecturer for the postgraduate programme at the Jakarta Arts Institute (2015-present). He received his PhD from the National University of Singapore.

Dr. Liisa-Rávná Finbog is a Sámi Indigenous scholar, duojár and curator from Oslo, Vaapste, and Skánit in the Norwegian part of Sápmi. As a long-time practitioner of duodji [Sámi practices of aesthetics and storytelling], her work  combines her aesthetic practice with an Indigenous research focus, blending Sámi ways of being (ontology), knowing (epistemology), and doing (axiology) with traditional research paradigms of Western academia.  Together with Sámi word-warrior Timimie Märak and Sámi Nature Guardian Beaska Niilas, she is also one of the three founding members of Hásstuheaddji collective, a Sámi led think-tank that gather thinkers, performers and artists to dialogue and reflect.

Dr. Finbog is currently based in Tampere, on the Finnish side of Sápmi, where she is doing post-doc research in connection with Mediated Arctic Geographies, a project that aims to look at how Arctic geospheres are aesthetically shaped and mediated to become vehicles of environmental, [geo]political and social concerns at Tampere University. Her specific focus is on the relation between Indigenous aesthetics in the Arctic and land.

Dr. Finbog’s written works include contributions to collective works such as Research Journeys In/To Multiple Ways of Knowing (2019), articles in Nordic Museology (2015) and in the digital platform Action Stories (2021), essays in multiple exhibition catalogues (2022, 2023) as well as several upcoming works, including her first book, It Speaks to You – Making kin through people, stories, and duodji in Sámi Museums (2023).

Ms Marcela Flores Méndez is the Director of Centre de Cultura Digital, Mexico. Among other projects, Ms Méndez has coordinated the México Creativo Desarrollo Cultural Sostenible (2019-2021) at the Ministry of Culture; the Dirección de Fábrica Digital El Rule (2018) and the Dirección del Laboratorio de Tecnologías el Rule (2019). She also served as Deputy Director of cultural programming at the Centro de Cultura Digital from 2012 to 2016.

Ms Méndez studied acting at El Foro de Teatro Contemporáneo and later studied lighting technology at the Escuela Superior de Artes del Espectáculo del Instituto del Teatro de Barcelona and Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña from 2003 to 2005. In her former role as a designer, she was in charge of the lighting design of the piece Farsa y Artificio by Melanie Smith(2019); the lighting of the exhibition Esperando el relámpago by Ale de la Puente, at the Laboratorio Arte Alameda (2018); the direction of Conejoblanco Galería de Libros (2006-2012); and the programming and curatorship of Nuevos atajos y otros caminos hacia la  participación colectiva para el Foro de Ideas en Ambulante (2015), to name a few. 

Ms Marie Fol is an independent advisor, researcher and cultural manager based in Belgium. An advocate for international cultural collaboration, she is involved in many European initiatives supporting the mobility of artists and culture professionals.

Ms Fol co-creates projects for several organisations including the Arts Council of Wales (Arts Infopoint UK initiative), the European Dancehouse Network, Flanders Arts Institute and CNM Centre National de la Musique.  She is an expert for the European Commission (Creative Europe programme) and for the Institut français (Archipel.eu project). Since 2019, she works as project manager for Keychange, a global network and movement advancing gender equality in the music industry. Maintaining this role, she is now expanding her responsibilities as development lead, working on the future development and expansion of Keychange.

Ms Fol is the President of On the Move, the international network for cultural mobility, and a company Director of Res Artis, the international network of art residencies. She co-authored Mapping Study and Report on Mobility and Collaboration Funding (2021) and Operational Study About a Mobility Scheme for Artists and Culture Professionals (2019). She has also written a research paper on virtualisation in contemporary dance (EDN, 2021).

Ms Ann Follin is the Director General of the National Museums of World Culture – an organisation consisting of four national museums in the two largest cities of Sweden. Ms Follin has previously held leadership positions such as Director of the National Museum of Science and Technology, Sweden (2008-2015) and Director General of the Swedish Travelling Exhibitions (2002-2008). She is Vice Chairman of the University of Gothenburg; Chairman of the Cooperation Council for the Swedish National Museums; member of the steering committee for Digisam – Secretariat for National coordination of digitisation, digital preservation and digital access to cultural heritage; and a member of the Board of Trustees at Deutsches Museum.

Mr Ayodele Ganiu is a Talking Drum artist, arts manager, culture producer and activist committed to advocating for cultural policy, copyright reforms as well as defending artistic freedom in Africa. He holds a BSc (Hons.) in Finance from University of Lagos, Nigeria (2004). Ayodele is a graduate of the Academy for Cultural Diplomacy, Berlin-Germany (2009), GoDown Centre’s Cultural Leadership Train-the-Trainer course, Nairobi-Kenya (2012), African Art Institute’s Cultural Entrepreneurship course, Cape Town-South Africa (2015) and University of Hildesheim UNESCO Chair’s Arts Rights Justice Academy, Germany (2018).

Mr Ganiu is the founder/executive producer of Unchained Vibes Africa where his recent work focuses on music for civic engagements. He was previously the co-founder/programme director at Intro Afrika and artistic director of Yoruba Drum Festival. He has served as Nigerian national coordinator, continental coordinator for Artwatch Africa and regional programme officer for Africa at Freemuse. For greater protection for artists’ intellectual property rights in Nigeria, he worked with major stakeholders in successfully advocating for a new copyright bill. Ayodele has dedicated his career to defending artistic freedom through coordination of several campaigns and successfully securing freedom for artists persecuted for their works. He has provided emergency assistance for artists at risk including arranging legal representation, medical treatment and trial observations.

Mr Ganiu was awarded the O'Brien Fellowship by the Center for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, McGill University, Canada in 2019 and Reagan-Fascell Fellowship by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Washington D.C., United States in 2020.

Dr. Samay Hamed is a poet, writer, composer, and visual artist with more than 50 published books. He has also worked as television programme creator and director for TOLO TV, Afghanistan National TV, and Arezo TV. He is currently General Director of Afghanistan PEN (a member of PEN International) and former senior advisor on innovation for the President of Afghanistan. He is a winner of International Press Freedom Award 2003 (CPJ, New York), the Tucholsky Prize from PEN Sweden and PEN Norway's Ossietzky Prize 2021.

Ms Lucy Hannah is the founder and Director of Untold Narratives, a development programme for writers marginalised by community or conflict. Its Write Afghanistan project produced My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird, New Fiction by Afghan Women (Hachette UK, 2022), the first anthology of contemporary Afghan fiction in translation; Rising After the Fall, (Scholastic Publishing, May 2023), a children’s book by Afghan women writers about the fall of Kabul and its aftermath. Its Write Assamese project produced: A Fistful of Moonlight, Stories from Assam (BEE Books, India/Hachette UK, 2023), also fiction in translation.

Ms Hannah also founded and led Commonwealth Writers; as well as Out of the Gate, the UK's first online audio soap opera created, written, and produced by young ex-offenders. While at the BBC, Lucy established BBC Writer’s Room which discovers, develops, and champions new writing talent across the UK. She is Vice President of the BOCAS LitFest, Trinidad and a Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College, London. She was a co-writer of the report, Cities of Literature: Initiatives, Impacts and Legacies (2019); editorial consultant for a special edition of the Griffith Review - Commonwealth Now; and author of Nancy Wake, the Gestapo’s Most Wanted Woman, a children’s book.

Ms Faye Hobson is the programme director for culture at Salzburg Global Seminar where she leads programmes that harness the power of arts, creativity, and new models of leadership to shape a better world. She is responsible for designing, developing, and implementing the Culture, Arts, and Society programme series, the Public Policy New Voices Europe Fellowship, and the Cultural Innovators Forum.

From 2017 to 2021, Ms Hobson supported the Education programme portfolio at Salzburg Global. Outside of her work at Salzburg Global, Faye is an advisor to The World in 2050 think tank, and a member of the steering committee for Karanga: The Global Alliance for Social and Emotional Learning and Life Skills. She has been recognised as an Emerging Leader by WISE: The World Innovation Summit in Education. Prior to joining Salzburg Global in 2017, Ms Hobson worked for five years in the cultural and community sector, and in local government in Northern Ireland. Faye holds a bachelor's in photography from Falmouth University, UK, and a diploma in management practice from the University of Ulster, UK. She is currently studying on the Executive MBA course at MCI Innsbruck: The Entrepreneurial School, Austria.

Ms Ruth Hogarth is a journalist and broadcaster, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London.

Having started her career as a theatre stage manager, she made the change to journalism, joining the BBC World Service as a trainee. She worked for the BBC for 20 years as a producer, presenter, editor and managing editor in news, current affairs and newsgathering, across radio and TV and online.

Ms Hogarth then spent a decade working in academia where she was a founding director of the Cultural Institute at King's College London, working in knowledge exchange and cultural policy.

She is currently Editor of Arts Professional, the independent voice of the UK’s arts sector, a trustee of the British American Drama Academy, and sits on the Steering Group of Clore Leadership’s Cultural Governance Alliance.

Ms Lucy Ilado is the regional program director of Selam, a Stockholm-based international arts organisation with offices in Ethiopia and Kenya. She has seven years of experience as a music critic, arts curator, and journalist in Africa. She is a cultural and artistic rights activist who advocates for the preservation of African culture and history, as well as the right of artists to express themselves freely and make a living from their work. Selam is presently implementing the Pan-African Network for Artistic Freedom (PANAF), which seeks to create a Pan-African inclusive voice for organisations connecting African artists and culture producers defending artistic freedom to, among other activities, lobby for better policies that allow artists to freely create and distribute their work without fear of being censored.

Mr Martin Inthamoussú currently works as a consultant on creative economy for the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington DC, USA.  Between 2013 and 2022, Mr Inthamoussú worked for SODRE, the oldest public cultural institution in Uruguay dedicated to artistic education, arts promotion, audience development, the development of traditions and the pursuit of artistic excellence. Mr Inthamoussú was the President and CEO of SODRE until June 2022. 

Mr Inthamoussú is a professor at the Catholic University of Uruguay and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in theatre studies from the University of Manchester, United Kingdom, a Master of Arts in communication and an MBA from the Catholic University of Uruguay. In addition, he has a postgraduate degree in arts education from the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI) and a postgraduate diploma in international cultural affairs from the University of Girona, Spain. Mr Inthamoussú also studied cultural management, performance venues administration and cultural marketing at the Miguel de Cervantes University, Spain. He is a member of the governance committee of the International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA). He is also an alumni of the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the University of Maryland, USA. 

He just graduated from the Yale World Fellows Program at Jackson School of International Affairs at Yale University.

Dr Maria Rosario Jackson is the 13th chair of the National Endowment for the Arts. For more than 25 years, her work has focused on understanding and elevating arts, culture, and design as critical elements of healthy communities. Dr Jackson’s work blends social science and arts and humanities-based approaches to comprehensive community revitalisation, systems change, the dynamics of race and ethnicity, and the roles of arts and culture in communities. She has a long career in strategic planning, policy research, and evaluation with philanthropy, government, and non-profit organizations. Dr Jackson has served as an advisor on philanthropic programs and investments at national, regional, and local foundations.

Ms. Janse is the Swedish State Secretary for International Development Cooperation. Before taking up this position, she was a Senior Fellow at the Stockholm Free World Forum (Frivärld) between 2021-2022.

During her career as a diplomat, she has served in Afghanistan, Russia and in Foreign Minister Carl Bildt’s cabinet. She has also served as ambassador to Mali (2019-2021), Georgia (2010-2014) and Lebanon/Syria (2014-2015). From 2015 to 2019, she was foreign policy advisor and international director at the Moderate Party. In 2010, her book A Piece of My Heart I Leave Behind was published about her experiences in Afghanistan.

Ms. Janse holds two degrees from Uppsala University, a Master’s in political science and a Bachelor in Russian Language and Literature.

Ms Dulamsuren Jigjid has been the Executive Director of the NGO Culture Centre for Deaf, Mongolia, since 2014. Her career spanning 15 years has a strong focus on human rights and multicultural affairs. At the heart of Ms Jigjid’s work is the inclusion of people with disabilities in social culture and the provision of culture to them in a realistic, inclusive and accessible way. In this framework, her organisation has implemented several cultural, social, and humanitarian projects since 2014. Currently, Ms Jigjid serves as a board member of the Council of Young Culture and Arts Managers under the Ministry of Culture of Mongolia and is on the Board of Directors of CBM Global Disability Inclusion.

Ms. Jigjid has shared her expertise with people around the world, including serving as a trainer for the Human Rights Project of the World Federation of the Deaf in the Maghreb region and being part of the IDA's team for UN Women's Disability and Gender Inclusivity Training in Cairo, Egypt. She holds a master's degree in cultural studies from the Mongolian University of Science and Technology and an advanced master's degree in cultural management from Freie Universität Berlin.

Ms Jenny Johannisson is Deputy Director at the Swedish Agency for Cultural Policy Analysis, where she has also worked as an analyst since 2018. Ms Johannisson is an associate professor of library and information science at the Centre for Cultural Policy Research, University of Borås and her previous research interests have primarily included local and regional cultural policies, in Sweden as well as from a Nordic comparative perspective. She has also been a project member of AMASS (Acting on the Margins: Arts as Social Sculpture), a Horizon 2020 project running between 2020 and 2022. In addition to being a researcher and teacher,  Ms Johannisson has contributed to the establishment of two open access scholarly journals in the cultural policy research field, Nordisk Kulturpolitisk Tidskrift at University of Borås and Culture Unbound at Linköping University. Between 2012 and 2020, Ms Johannisson was chair of the International Conference on Cultural Policy Research (ICCPR) Scientific Committee.

Bamuthi (Marc Bamuthi Joseph) is a 2017 TED Global Fellow, an inaugural recipient of the Guggenheim Social Practice Initiative, and an honoree of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship. He is also the winner of the 2011 Herb Alpert Award in Theatre and an inaugural recipient of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award.

Mr Joseph’s work investigates cultural erasure and Black Dignity through performances that range from opera to film. His opera libretto, We Shall Not Be Moved, was named one of 2017’s Best Classical Music Performances by The New York Times. His piece The Just and The Blind investigates the crisis of over-sentencing in the prison industrial complex and premiered at a sold-out performance at Carnegie Hall in March 2019.

Formerly the Chief of Program and Pedagogy at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) in San Francisco, Mr Joseph currently serves as Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, USA.

Ms Mia Kami is a Tongan singer and songwriter. She is passionate about indigenous sovereignty, climate change, ocean conservation and the Pacific region. Ms Kami attended the University of the South Pacific where she majored in Law and Politics. She is currently working as a teacher at Tupou College Toloa in Tonga. She channels her passions into songwriting and uses her music to tell her stories as a young Pacific woman. She believes that art is the strongest form of storytelling that connects Pacific and indigenous people to their ancestors and their descendants.

Mr Alfons Karabuda is an accomplished composer with more than 30 years’ experience in the music industry. He is a member of the cultural committee of the Swedish National Commission for UNESCO and in 2021, was appointed by the Swedish Government as an expert for the report Restart for Culture - Recovery and Development After Corona.

Mr Karabuda has served as an expert in artistic rights to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which in 2013 included working on the first ever UNHRC report on artistic rights.

Mr Karabuda is currently President of the International Music Council; the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance; and the Internet Media Foundation. He is Executive Chairman of Swedish Association of Composers, Songwriters and Lyricists. In addition, he serves as member of the executive committee of the Swedish Performing Rights Society (STIM) and the Swedish Joint Committee for Artistic and Literary Professionals (KLYS). He is Chairman of Musiksverige (Music Sweden) and a member of the Board of Directors of the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, the Global Node Stockholm, and the Global Music Vault.

Dr Ammar Kessab is the principal regional governance coordinator at the African Development Bank (AfDB). He has spent more than 10 years managing a portfolio of governance projects in Central, West and North Africa, and leading the appraisal, structuring and execution of governance and public reforms operations in 16 African countries. An expert in public financial management, Dr Kessab often collaborates with regional and international organisations in the fields of cultural policies, financial management of cultural organisations and the development of the cultural industries. He is a member of the Board of the African Culture Fund (ACF) and a founding member of the Trans-Saharan Artistic Mobility Fund (TSAMF). Deeply involved in the cultural debates in Africa and the Arab region, Dr Kessab has published several reports, articles and book chapters, with a particular interest in culture and economic development. He holds a PhD in management from Angers University, France and a master's degree in governance from the University of Sussex, United Kingdom.

Ms Deeyah Khan is a two-time Emmy and BAFTA award-winning documentary film director and founder of Fuuse, a media and education company that aims to create a space for telling more inclusive and diverse stories. In 2016, Ms Khan became the first UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for artistic freedom and creativity. She has received many honours for her work supporting freedom of expression, human rights and peace, including the Ossietzky Prize, the University of Oslo's Human Rights Award and the Peer Gynt Prize from the Parliament of Norway.

Ms Khan has spent over a decade of making empathetic and unflinching films which deal with some of the most important and polarising issues confronting the world today; extremism, violence against women, inequality, racism and social exclusion. One of her initiatives includes sister-hood, a digital magazine and series of live events spotlighting the voices of women of Muslim heritage. Ms Khan has also produced several critically acclaimed albums, including Listen to the Banned, a compilation of musicians from around the world who have been subject to persecution, censorship and imprisonment. 

Mr Jozef Kovalčik is a philosopher, university teacher and cultural advisor. He worked at the Academy of Fine Arts, Slovak Republic as a teacher and researcher from 2004 to 2015; as head of the Visual and Cultural Studies Section of the Research Center from 2009 to 2011; and vice-chancellor for studies from 2011 to 2015.

Mr Kovalčik specialises in the relationship between high and popular culture, design theory and art school education. He is also engaged in curatorial and translation activities.

Dr Frances Koya Vaka’uta isthe team leader of Culture for Development at Pacific Community-SPC. Prior to joining the Human Rights and Social Development team at Pacific Community-SPC, Dr Koya Vaka’uta was an associate professor at and Director of the Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies at the University of the South Pacific (USP), Laucala Campus in Suva. A teacher by profession, she first started at USP in 1998, teaching and researching on curriculum studies, culture and multicultural education, Small Island Developing States (SIDS), indigenous pedagogies and methodologies, Pacific studies, and resilience and education for sustainability. Over the last fifteen years, Dr Koya Vaka’uta has been actively engaged in policy development and community outreach in the areas of education, youth, arts and culture. 

KVADRENNALEN, platform for contemporary art to respond to political threat, was a leaderless 9-month artist-run, nationwide, transdisciplinary art movement to stand up for art, with art, during the Swedish election year in 2021. A hundred and fifty four events, 70 locations and 51 organisers mounted art events and actions with the single message that art has an essential place and role in society, countering the public and political misconception that art and culture are optional, even secondary, endeavours.

 Ms Anna Koch (Sweden), is a dancer and choreographer, moving freely in-between disciplines. Since 2006, Ms Koch has been the director of Weld, independent platform for experimental processes and knowledge production (based in Stockholm). She’s a core proponent and facilitator of KVADRENNALEN. Mr Thierry Mortier (Belgium/Sweden), is a visual artist and semiotician, living in Stockholm since 2018. Working with relations as an art medium to generate forms, Mr Mortier's practice revolves around transformations and positions. He is the initiator of KVADRENNALEN.

A book on the KVADRENNALEN movement is scheduled for publication late 2023.

Ms Jimena Lara currently serves as the chief culture and social impact officer at The Anglo Mexican Foundation, a non-profit organisation that has been dedicated to offering educational and cultural opportunities within a British-Mexican context since 1943.

Ms Lara holds a BA degree in communication from Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico, and an MA in media, culture and communication from New York University. As a public administration official, she served as Director General of International Affairs at the Ministry of Culture of Mexico and Director of International Affairs at the National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA) and held positions in the National Fund for Culture and the Arts (FONCA); Auditorio Nacional, and the Mexican Cultural Institute of New York, among others.

Ms Lara is a Salzburg Global Seminar Fellow and has been a part of several governing and advisory bodies, including the Anglo Mexican Foundation, Centro Cultural La Quinta Montes Molina (Mérida, Yucatán), the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA), the Bergman Chair of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and the Nordic Culture Fund Globus Call (Nordic Region).

LASTESIS is an artistic, interdisciplinary and feminist collective from Valparaíso, Chile. It was founded by Daffne Valdés Vargas, Paula Cometa Stange, Lea Cáceres Díaz and Sibila Sotomayor Van Rysseghem. The collective is dedicated to disseminating feminist theses and demands through performance and video, combining sound, graphic and textile arts with history, philosophy and the social sciences. Their performances include Resistance or the Vindication of a Collective Right (2021); The Rapist is You (2020); and Patriarchy and Capital is Criminal Alliance (2018). Their street intervention, A Rapist in Your Way was replicated in more than 50 countries. In addition to their stage work, LASTESIS have published several books, participated in in-person and virtual events in 30+ countries and disseminated their work through hundreds of conversations and multiple collaborative workshops.

LASTESIS have received multiple awards including the Jaime Castillo Velasco Award from the Chilean Human Rights Commission (2020), the Design of the Year Award in the digital category from The Design Museum, UK (2020) and recognition by TIME Magazine in TIME 100: The Most Influential People of 2020.

Ms Pamela López was most recently the Director of Programming and Audiences at Gabriela Mistral Cultural Centre (GAM) – a performing arts and music centre that generates direct encounters between artists and diverse audiences – located in Santiago, Chile. Ms López holds a master’s degree in Arts Administration from Columbia University (2011), undertaken with a Fulbright Fellowship for postgraduate studies and a national grant (Becas Chile). Ms López is an advocate and researcher in performing arts and management issues and serves as a lecturer at several universities in Chile, including Universidad de Chile and Pontificia Universidad Católica. A two-time recipient of the Global ISPA Fellowship, Ms López is a committed professional for the theatre community who has served several organisations and Boards in Chile and internationally, including Teatro SIDARTE, the Red de Salas (Theatre Network), and the government committee for cultural donations. She is currently part of the Columbia Global Centre in Chile, and the International Society for the Performing Arts Congress Planning Committee.

Mr Helge Lunde was the director of Kapittel, Stavanger International Festival of Literature and Freedom of Speech from 1998–2005. In the same period, he was responsible for coordinating Stavanger as City of Refuge for persecuted writers, and worked together with Norwegian PEN to develop and expand the network throughout Norway and beyond.

Mr Lunde was among the main figures behind establishing ICORN, the International Cities of Refuge Network in 2006. ICORN is an independent international organisation of 75 member cities and regions in Europe and beyond, offering safe havens for persecuted writers, artists and human rights defenders, who are advancing freedom of expression, defending democratic values and promoting international solidarity. He became its first executive director, a position he has been holding since.

Mr Kiwar W. Maigua is co-founder of the KISTH Foundation, the first Kichwa indigenous academic organisation and the biggest network of indigenous professionals in Ecuador. KISTH's mission is based on ancestral knowledge, cultural identity, and communitarian values, and currently implements projects and initiatives to include indigenous communities in the development of science, technology, and humanities. Mr Maigua is a member of the Young Experts for Fair Culture initiative, launched by the German Commission for UNESCO. He was a panellist at the Mondiacult World Conference 2022 in Mexico. One of his major foci is to support indigenous communities through development projects focusing on education, economy, and culture. He has been involved in many social and cultural projects, such as TURU UKU FEST 2022, which moves the art scene from urban areas to a Kichwa rural community, including their participation.

Ms Maria Manjate is Programmer Officer at the Observatory of Cultural Policies in Africa (OCPA) and an activist for cultural and natural heritage. She has a professional background in management and cultural studies. Ms Manjate has held leadership roles in several local and international programmes, including the Fourth Summit of Regional Cultural Institutions of Africa and the Diaspora; Seminar on the Strategy of Implementation of the Charter for African Cultural Renaissance; technical assistance on the Revision of the African Union Plan of Action on Cultural and Creative Industries; and assistance on the regional consultation on the development of the Continental Arts Education Policy. 

As activist for cultural and natural heritage, she contributed to the initiation and establishment of the ICCROM Youth.Heritage.Africa (YHA), programme. She has participated as discussant in the Regional World Heritage Nomination Training Course (December 2021, Tanzania); African World Heritage Young Leaders Workshop (May 2022, Cape Town); and Young Graduates and Scholars (AYGS) virtual Conference (March 2022). She served as Convener of the Regional Seminar Series on the occasion of the worldwide commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the World Heritage Convention and is alumni of the UNESCO Mentorship Programme for African World Heritage Professionals (July 2021 – November 2022).

Mr Simon Mellor is Deputy Chief Executive, Arts & Museums for Arts Council England. He is a member of the Arts Council’s Executive Board, has responsibility for national arts and cultural strategy and provides executive board leadership for the Arts Council’s international strategy. Prior to joining the Arts Council in 2012, he helped set up the Manchester International Festival in 2006 and was its first General Director. Before that he was the Chief Executive of the Lyric Hammersmith, West London’s leading producing and presenting theatre. He was also the producer founder of Gloria Theatre (an international music theatre company).

Dr Svetlana Mintcheva is an independent strategy consultant in the area of artistic freedom. Previoulsy she directed arts and culture programme activities at the New York based non-profit, National Coalition Against Censorship. Dr Mintcheva writes on emerging trends in censorship, organises public discussions and mobilises support for individual artists, curators, authors, teachers and librarians.

Dr Mintcheva is the co-editor of  Censoring Culture: Contemporary threats to free expression (The New Press, 2006) and Curating Under Pressure: International perspectives on negotiating conflict and upholding integrity (Routledge, 2020).

An academic as well as an activist, Dr Mintcheva has taught literature and critical theory at the University of Sofia, Bulgaria and at Duke University, USA, from which she received her PhD in critical theory in 1999, as well as at New York University. Her current research focuses on the challenges to the concept of free speech posed by social media, social justice movements and political polarisation.

Ms Letila Mitchell is a practising multimedia and performance artist. She is the Artistic Director for RakoPasefika, an Indigenous Oceanic creative company working with artists from around Oceania.  She is also currently undertaking her Doctorate in Creative Industries at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia and focusing her work on mapping and revitalising Rotuman Indigenous creative practice. 

Ms Mitchell is an experienced cultural producer, artistic director, artist and performer. She is dedicated to creative projects that deliver positive social change for indigenous peoples. Recent career highlights include: First Nations producer at the Sydney Opera House; segment director for the Edinburgh Tattoo in Sydney in 2019; and opening and closing segment producer in 2017-2018 for the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, Australia (4 April to 15 April 2018).  

Ms Mitchell was the founder of a Pacific regional network, the Pacific Arts Alliance and is the former Director of the Fiji Arts Council. She is an arts leader in the Pacific region and has undertaken pioneering work on several major projects including Te Mana O Te Moana. She has served on several boards and committees including the Uto ni Yalo, Commonwealth Group for Culture and Development, Auckland Museum Board and the Global South Arts and Cultural Initiative. 

Ms Magdalena Moreno Mujica became Executive Director of IFACCA in August 2017, having first joined the organisation as Deputy Director in 2014. Currently, she is a member of the UNESCO’s Expert Facility Group 2019-2022 to support the implementation of the 2005 Convention. She is the author of the chapter, Building resilient and sustainable cultural and creative sectors in the 2022 UNESCO Global Report, Re|Shaping Policies for Creativity – Addressing culture as a global public good.

Prior to this, Ms Moreno Mujica was Head of International Affairs at the National Council for Culture and the Arts, Chile (CNCA) and international ministerial adviser. In this role, she oversaw international arts and cultural strategy; served as Programme Director of the 6th World Summit on Arts and Culture (Santiago, 2014); delivered Chile’s participation in three Venice Biennales; served on the Board of Fundación Imagen de Chile; and represented Chile on the IFACCA Board (2012-2014). 

Before this Ms Moreno Mujica was based in Australia, where she was CEO of Kultour, the national peak body supporting cultural diversity in the arts (2008-2011); a member of the National Cultural Policy Taskforce for Creative Australia; and led an international initiative to strengthen south-south dialogue (The South Project, 2004-2008). She holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne; is an alumna of the Asialink Leaders Program (2008) and the Australia Council for the Arts' Emerging Leaders Program (2010); has served on several Boards, including for Diversity Arts Australia (2016-2018).

Mr Nicholas Moyo brings extensive experience in arts management spanning over 28 years. He is currently the Executive Director of the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe. Mr Moyo, a seasoned arts administrator, has been an artist himself, starting at the age of 15 while in high school. As he pursued his academic studies, he continued his art on a part-time basis.

Over the years, Mr Moyo has led several projects in Zimbabwe as director, producer and administrator. He has also been instrumental in the establishment of many arts festivals in Zimbabwe.

Mr Moyo holds a master’s degree in business administration and a bachelor’s degree in media studies. He also holds a certificate in arts management, following a three-year summer fellowship at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, USA. A trained educator, he has participated as tutor in various training programmes at the University of Zimbabwe.

Mr Farai Mpfunya is the co-founding Executive Director of the Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust, a not-for-profit organisation that drives active social transformation by working with communities, investing in innovative and sustainable creative sector capacities, and mainstreaming culture in sustainable development. Mr Mpfunya is a development expert with a background in Engineering (Paul Sabatier University - Toulouse, France); Business Management (Chevening Scholar at Middlesex University Business School); and the arts. He has more than 20 years’ professional experience in public and private arts and culture sectors, encompassing culture and development; cultural and creative industries; and policy development. Mr Mpfunya is a member of the EU/UNESCO Expert Facility on the Governance of Culture for the implementation of the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions; and has served on the cultural policy committee for the Pan African organisation, Arterial Network. Mr Mpfunya is a fellow of the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts, Washington DC (2012 cohort); and served on the UNDP National Peace Building project board – Deepening the Foundations of Peace and Social Cohesion in Zimbabwe.

Mr Joshua Msambila is a practising lawyer, artist, artists’ human rights defender, cultural rights defender, beatmaker, and founder of the Tanzania Artists Rights Organization (TARO). TARO is a non-governmental organisation that advocates for the rights and interests of artists and their works. TARO serves as a human rights and cultural rights defender for artists. It contributes to the development of the arts and cultural sector by focusing on the promotion of artistic freedom of expression, artists' rights and interests, professionalism, and gender equality. The organisation achieves this through advocacy, awareness campaigns, monitoring, and reporting on artistic freedom in Tanzania.

Mr Odil Mukhamedov is lead producer at MOC creative organisation, a community of creatives in Uzbekistan that includes designers, artists, writers, photographers and videographers. MOC is a full-fledged production centre and creative hub in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, which aims to unite creative communities in the country and organise unique cultural projects. The organisation operates in different creative spheres from music to arts festivals. MOC is a partner and main organiser of the Stihia Music, Arts and Science Festival; the multidisciplinary art festival MOC FEST (which includes the independent film festival, Cinema Love; the independent music festival, Groza; and the festival of interactive media and music, WE.COSMOS, among others).

Ms Anette Novak is the CEO of the Swedish Film Institute, a state-funded foundation, supporting Swedish film in all aspects, from film heritage to state aid towards development, production and distribution, including promoting film literacy – active at the crossroads of a booming cultural and creative industry and public policy. Ms Novak is the former Director General of the Swedish Media Council, a government agency in charge of Sweden’s film classification, strengthened media and information literacy. With a background in journalism, Ms Novak has a long leadership career, earning her a solid experience in change management. Her digital evangelism led her to the position as the CEO of RISE Interactive, a state-owned ICT and design research institute. At RISE Interactive Ms Novak deepened her understanding of how culture and creativity can serve as a vehicle for disruptive innovation. She also serves as one of the directors on the interim supervisory board of EIT’s Culture and Creativity Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC). 

Mr Ernesto Ottone R. is the Assistant Director-General for Culture of UNESCO. Prior to this position, Mr Ottone R. served as Chile’s first Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage from 2015 to 2018. As Minister of Culture, he created a Department of First Peoples, a Migrants Unit and strengthened copyright laws and heritage protections. During this time, he also chaired the Regional Centre for the Promotion of Books in Latin America and the Caribbean (2016 – 2017). 

From 2011 to 2015, Mr Ottone R. served as Director-General of the Artistic and Cultural Extension Center of the University of Chile, which manages the National Symphony Orchestra of Chile, the Chilean National Ballet (BANCH), the Chile Symphony Choir and the Vocal Camerata. From 2001 to 2010, he held the position of Executive Director at the Matucana 100 Cultural Center in Santiago. 

Mr Ottone R. holds a master's degree in Management of Cultural Institutions and Policies from the University of Paris IX Dauphine (1998) and a Bachelor of Arts in theatre from the University of Chile (1995).

Dr Áine O’Brien is curator of Learning and Research and co-founder of Counterpoints Arts, London. She has worked across the arts, education and activism in the US, Ireland and the UK and was co-director of Counterpoints Arts 2012- 2020. 

Dr O’Brien runs Learning Lab, a platform supporting cooperative (un)learning through socially engaged art (SEA). She directs the Summer School on Cultural Diversity and Collaborative Practice (in partnership with Create - National Development Agency for Collaborative Arts). A recent collective learning initiative includes Mutual Affinities 2022 (commissioned by Creative Scotland) and the publication Art, Migration and the Production of Radical Democratic Citizenship (co-edited with Agnes Czajka, Rowman International - Frontiers of the Political Series, 2022). She is currently developing a series of international, place-based commissions engaging socially engaged artists, investigative journalists and digital activists with Beyond the Now - a syndicated social practice platform working across curation, commissioning, research and production.

Ms Gitte Ørskou (b. 1971) is a Danish art historian, curator and museum director. Since 2019, she has been the director of Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden’s national gallery of modern and contemporary art. From 2009, she was the director at Kunsten – Museum of Modern Art Aalborg. Ørskou was chief curator at ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum from 2001 to 2009, and she has been the Chairman of the Danish National Art Foundation. She holds positions in several boards and has been responsible for the Danish representation on the Venice Biennial on several occasions, and she is the author of numerous articles and books on modern and contemporary art.

Ms Paminder Parbha is a human rights worker, artist, and a keen advocate of culture as a driver for social change and cohesion. During a career spanning over 25 years which have included working for Amnesty International as well as Freemuse, Ms Parbha's key focus has been on addressing systemic forms of discrimination and violations targeted at individuals and groups based on gender, race, etc.

Ms Parbha joined the PEN Secretariat in November 2020 and as well as being responsible for mainstreaming gender and diversity, she works closely with PEN Centres globally.

Ms Caren Rangi is of Māori descent and an experienced public sector governance practitioner, with a passion for Cook Islands Māori dance, music, and cultural history. Ms Rangi is a qualified accountant and auditor, and a skilled facilitator. She is a board member of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Radio New Zealand and Pacific Co-operation Broadcasting Ltd. She is also a Board Director of the Cook Islands Investment Corporation and Chair of Pacific Homecare Services. In 2018 Ms Rangi was made an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to governance and the Pacific community. 

Mr Pablo Raphael de la Madrid is a narrator, essayist and diplomat. He was General Director of International Affairs and General Director of Cultural Promotion and Festivals at the Secretary of Culture, Government of Mexico. He was recently in charge of coordinating the organisation of the UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development, MONDIACULT 2022 that had place in México.

Mr Raphael served on the Board of IFACCA from May 2020 to January 2023. In 2018, Mr Raphael served as Cultural Advisor of the Mexican Embassy in Portugal; between 2013 and 2017 he was Cultural Advisor of the Embassy of Mexico and Director of the Cultural Institute of Mexico in Spain; and he was Director and founder of the cultural centre, El Octavo Día (1996-1999).

Mr Raphael is a PhD candidate in Humanities at Pompeu Fabra University and holds a Bachelor of Political Science and Public Administration from the lberoamericana University. He has authored contributions for newspapers El País, El Universal and El Faro; the cultural supplements Laberinto de Milenio Diario and Confabulario de El Universal; and diverse magazines including Revuelta, Gatopardo, Casa del Tiempo, Quimera and Granta. He has taught twentieth-century literature at the Claustro de Sor Juana University; and lectured in various forums on the future of the Spanish language, including the Amigos de espanol seminar at the United Nations and the Contemporary Thought and Science Seminar in Madrid.

Mr Raphael is about to publish the book of essays, The Submerged Cathedral, Praise of Culture and Plea against its Stupidity.

Ms Kajsa Ravin began her appointment as Director General for the Swedish Arts Council on March 9, 2020. She has been active in the cultural sector for more than twenty years and has comprehensive experience of driving cultural questions and culture policy both on a regional and national level. Prior to joining the Arts Council, she managed departments of cultural affairs in several Swedish regions and municipalities, most recently as Director of cultural affairs at Uppsala County. 

Ms Ravin has worked with a wide variety of cultural expressions, and she is strongly committed to making arts and culture accessible and relevant to broad audiences. She has a distinct interest in cultural diversity and audience development and has been involved in several projects about learning and education in the arts, for example the European consortium Collect and Share. She holds a BA in art history from University of Gothenburg.

Ms Ravin currently serves as a Board Member of the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA).  

Mr Ole Reitov is a global human rights defender, speaker, moderator, journalist and independent consultant. In 1999, he co-founded Freemuse, the world’s leading organisation defending artistic freedom and was its Executive Director from 2013 to 2017.

As expert consultant to the UN Special Rapporteur in the Field of Cultural Rights, Mr Reitov provided the background to the first UN report on artistic freedom, The right to freedom of artistic expression and creativity. Since 2015, he has been an appointed member of the EU/UNESCO Expert Facility for the 2005 Convention for the Protection and Promotion of the diversity of Cultural Expressions, and has conducted several workshops on behalf of UNESCO, most recently in Indonesia (2020), Namibia (2020) and at the World Press Freedom Day in Ethiopia (2019). He has co-developed the monitoring framework for artistic freedom of the 2005 UNESCO Convention and UNESCO’s training module on artistic freedom.

Mr Reitov has worked globally as a culture journalist and expert advisor. He has co-produced three world conferences on music censorship; in 2012, he initiated and produced the world’s first ever global conference on artistic freedom, All That is Banned is Desired. He is a prolific speaker and writer on artistic freedom.

Mr. Erling Rimestad was appointed State Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway in August 2022. His portfolio covers Asia and Oceania, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, as well as trade and business promotion, UN affairs and Human Rights, including freedom of expression and cultural rights. Prior to his appointment, Mr. Rimestad served as Director General in the Trade Policy Department of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries. Through his career in the Foreign Service since the early 1990s, Mr. Rimestad has been posted to the Norwegian embassies in Singapore and Washington, D.C., and he has been Director of the Section for East Asia and Oceania. He was Norway’s Ambassador in Tokyo from 2014 to 2018. Mr. Rimestad was born in 1963. He holds a BA in Political Science.

Mr Lázaro Rodríguez is the founder of Transformatorio S.A., an international consultancy firm based in Panama, specialised in the cultural dimension of sustainable development. He is a member of the UNESCO Expert Facility for the implementation of the UNESCO Thematic Indicators for Culture, Culture|2030 (2021-2022); a member of the Panel of Experts of the UNESCO International Fund for Cultural Diversity (2020-2023); and a part of the European Union/UNESCO Expert Facility on the Governance of Culture in Developing Countries, since 2019. With the UNESCO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, Mr Rodríguez has been a consultant for the Urban Sustainable Development: Culture and Creativity Implementation Guidelines (2019-2021) and has designed the Transcultura Program Twinning platform project (2021). He was also a coordinator at Panama City UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy (2017-March 2020). With UNDP, Mr Rodríguez worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the policymaking of the National Strategy of Cultural Diplomacy in Panamá (2018-2019). His work on Economía creativa en América Latina y el Caribe: Mediciones y desafíos was published by the Interamerican Development Bank in 2018. He has also served as part of the Evaluation Board of the British Council Circular Culture Fund initiative, in Mexico. 

Ms Mika Romanus is the Director General of the Swedish Arts Grants Committee, a government agency tasked with promoting artistic development and renewal for artists in all artistic disciplines, since August 2022. Prior to her current role, Ms Romanus held the position of General Secretary at the Swedish Union for Performing Arts & Film from 2016-2022. Previously, she was also head of unit and Deputy Director General at the Swedish Arts Council. Ms Romanus has extensive experience in working with cultural policy issues and has, in various assignments, focused on artist´s social and economic conditions. She has been part of international collaborations, both in global union work and as a member of the Swedish National Commission for UNESCO 2014-2017 where issues like artistic freedom were on top of the agenda. Ms Romanus holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Stockholm and has also studied at the University of Lund and Hunter College, New York. 

Ms Kathy Rowland is the Managing Editor and co-Founder of ArtsEquator.com, which is dedicated to promoting arts criticism in Southeast Asia with a regional perspective.

Ms Rowland has worked in the arts for over 25 years, running arts programmes and arts media platforms. She has edited several volumes of plays by leading playwrights from Malaysia. She has also worked on cross-cultural exchanges and arts advocacy, with a special focus on arts censorship. She has produced theatre and visual arts events in Australia, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand and the USA.

Ms Rowland is the Lead Researcher in Five Arts Centre Malaysia’s performance archive project. In 2022, she launched the Southeast Asian Arts Censorship Database project to document current restrictions and challenges in the region, under ArtsEquator.com.

She was a member of the International Programme Advisory Committee (IPAC) of the 8th World Summit on Arts and Culture (2019, Malaysia). Previously, she taught in the MA and BA programmes at the Faculty for Creative Industries, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore.

Mr Patrick Sam is the Founding Director of Creative Culture Investments Pty. Ltd. He was the former Chairperson of the National Art Council of Namibia (NACN) from 2019-2022, and is currently an honorary member of the NACN, and a Board Member of IFACCA from 2019-2023 as the Chair of the African Regional Chapter with his terms coming to an end at the IFACCA World Summit on Arts & Culture in Stockholm. As a Fulbright Scholar, he completed an MA in International & Transcultural Studies from Columbia University.

Ms Katrina Stuart Santiago is an independent writer whose repertoire ranges from art reviews, cultural criticism, and popular iconographies to political commentary and opinion, and creative non-fiction.  Ms Santiago's writing fuels her activism, seeking practices that delve into systemic dysfunctions and institutional crises, and championing a lived feminism that explores questions of inequality and privilege. 

Ms Santiago founded PAGASA-People for Accountable Governance and Sustainable Action towards forming a new civil society that forges issue-based solidarity across diverse sectors.  She is co-owner of the small press Everything’s Fine and a teacher of writing and criticism at the College of St. Benilde-School of Design and the Arts. In 2017, Ms Santiago published two books of cultural criticism with the Atene de Naga University Press entitled Romances: Variations on Love and Rebellions: Notes on Independence. Her book of creative non-fiction, Of Love and Other Lemons, was reprinted in 2020. In 2021, she represented the Philippines at the Association for Women’s Rights in Development’s Feminist Journalist Project, a global cohort of journalists that seeks to co-create stories based on lived feminism.

Dr Ahmad Naser Sarmast, a laureate of Polar Music Prize and a recipient of the Honorary Membership Award of the Royal Philharmonic Society of the UK, is the Founder and Director of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM). ANIM has been at the forefront of promoting human rights, protecting Afghanistan’s rich cultural heritage, empowering women and girls through music, facilitating intercultural dialog, and advocating for the rights of artists and musicians.

A visionary cultural leader and figure, Dr Sarmast is an advocate for music education and a strong believer in the power of music as a force in bringing about social changes, transforming lives, and connecting nations and civilisations.

Dr Sarmast and ANIM have always been targets of the Taliban; threats magnified after the return of the Taliban to power and placed the lives of students, faculty, and staff at extreme and direct risk. Dr Sarmast, supported by many friends from around the world, successfully evacuated his community and currently reconstitutes his school in Portugal.

Ms Anupama Sekhar is an arts manager specialising in transnational cultural co-operation. Currently, she is Director of Policy and Engagement at IFACCA. She is also a member of the Panel of Experts for UNESCO’s International Fund for Cultural Diversity. Ms. Sekhar is a Board Member of ArtsEquator, which promotes critical writing about arts practice in south-east Asia, and the curator of the South-South Arts Fellowships 2022. Since 2015, Ms Sekhar has been a member of the UNESCO Expert Facility for the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. In this capacity, she has undertaken missions to Bangladesh, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and the Philippines. Most recently, she authored the chapter, Re-imagining Mobility for Artists and Cultural Professionals in the UNESCO Global Report 2022, Re|Shaping Policies for Creativity - Addressing culture as a global public good. Previously, Ms Sekhar worked at the Asia-Europe Foundation, where she was Director for Culture from 2015-2021.     Ms Sekhar is a trained dancer in the Indian classical style of Bharatnatyam. A citizen of India, she is currently based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. 

Ms Anasuya Sengupta is Co-Director and co-founder of Whose Knowledge?, a global multilingual campaign to centre the knowledges of marginalised communities (the minoritised majority of the world) online. She has led initiatives across the global South, and internationally for over 25 years, to collectively create feminist presents and futures of love, justice, and liberation. She is committed to unpacking issues of power, privilege, and access, including her own as an anti-caste savarna woman.

Ms Sengupta is a co-founder and advisor to Numun Fund (the first feminist tech fund for and from the Global South), the former Chief Grantmaking Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation, and the former Regional Program Director at the Global Fund for Women. She is a 2017 Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow and received a 2018 Internet and Society award from the Oxford Internet Institute. She is on the Scholars’ Council for UCLA’s Center for Critical Internet Inquiry, and the advisory committee for MIT’s Center for Research on Equitable and Open Scholarship (CREOS).

Ms Sengupta holds an MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Oxford, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. She also has a BA in Economics (Honours) from Delhi University.

Mr Volodymyr Sheiko is the Director of the Ukrainian Institute, Ukraine’s cultural diplomacy organisation that develops cultural relations between Ukraine and other countries and promotes better understanding of Ukraine internationally. From 2007 to 2018, Mr Sheiko worked at the British Council as Director of arts for Ukraine, marketing and communications manager; and arts programme manager for 15 countries of South-East Europe and Central Asia.

Mr Sheiko has produced, programmed, organised or otherwise contributed to over 200 arts, culture, and communications projects and events in 15 European countries, ranging art exhibitions, artistic residencies, film festivals and screenings, expert discussions, music concerts, literature projects, training workshops, conferences, theatre performances, communications campaigns, etc.

Mr Sheiko holds a master's degree in international relations from the National University of Kyiv and a professional diploma in marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (UK). He is a graduate of the Centre on Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California, School for Strategy Architects at the Kyiv-Mohyla Business School, and the Distinguished H. Humphrey Fellowship on media and disinformation from the University of Washington and the U.S. Department of State.

Ms Vicensia Shule is a creative producer for film, theatre and online content with over 20 years of active professional production experience globally. She is Senior Culture Officer at African Union Commission, and she has served as an Adjunct Professor at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) and as a senior faculty member of the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM).

Ms Shule has authored over 30 academic publications in the areas of feminism, arts, cultures, and creativity. She has also worked as a consultant, analyst, campaign initiator and strategist in the civil service, civil societies, public and private sectors. For over two decades, she has been conducting capacity enhancement trainings at community, national, regional and international levels in the areas of creative communication, restitution of heritage resources, media, women, politics, education, agriculture, health and tourism. She has also served in various boards of prominent institutions locally, regionally and internationally.

Ms Eline Sigfusson is the Managing Director of a/nordi/c a Nordic think tank for art and policies (2021-2023). At a/nordi/c, she is responsible for the day-to-day management and the impact strategy, which will be launched when the project is published and finalised during 2023. Ms Sigfusson has a broad Nordic and international network in the cultural sector, across foundations and within public and politically controlled organisations. Previously, she held the position as Deputy Director of the Nordic Culture Fund and has a background as a senior adviser from the Agency for Culture and Palaces, and has also worked in the music publishing industry. Her extensive experience spans both private and public cultural sector.

Ms Sigfusson has a master’s degree in public management.

Ms. Åsa Simma was born into a nomadic reindeer-herding family, migrating between northern Sweden and Norway depending on the season. She was taught the traditional Sámi singing called ‘yoik’, which was forbidden at that time. She was part of the movement to lift the yoiking ban. Later, she left for Denmark to pursue an acting education. She worked as a film dramaturgist and script developer at the International Sámi Film Institute. Presently, she is the CEO of the Sámi Theatre.

Ms Rupa Subramaniam is a creative professional based in Kuala Lumpur, currently serving as the creative director of Storyteller Studio. Since 2014, Ms Subramaniam has been developing communal art projects that get disseminated through digital platforms, and help artists build a digital presence. In 2017, her artistic take (using body paint) on Hindu goddesses protesting female body policing reached more than 2 million views worldwide. Her artistic activism is now a feminist web-documentary series called ANTIDOTE: skinandsoul.art. and she aims to continue having a brave conversation around body and safety. Ms Subramaniam is the founder of Art Battle Malaysia, a speed drawing competition, and leads the Banana Leaf Art Collective, a platform enabling Malaysian Indian creatives to tell collective stories about their communities and home. She also teaches art at GoodKids Malaysia.

Ms Karin Svanborg-Sjövall is State Secretary to the Swedish Minister for Culture Parisa Liljestrand. Her areas of responsibility are culture, democracy, media, the national minorities, and the language and culture of the Sami people. Ms Svanborg-Sjövall is a member of the Moderate Party.

Before taking up this position, Ms Svanborg-Sjövall was Political Advisor to Moderate Party Leader Ulf Kristersson in 2022; and CEO, writer and speaker at Svanborg-Sjövall Kommunikation KB (2020–2022). From 2014–2020 Ms Svanborg-Sjövall was CEO at Timbro/the Swedish Free Enterprise Foundation.

Ms Svanborg-Sjövall holds a Bachelor of Arts in European Studies, History and Political Science from Malmö University and Stockholm University. From 2020–2022, she was a member of the Svenska Dagbladet Foundation.

Ms Anni Syrjäläinen is a senior adviser at the Nordic Culture Fund. She has worked with further developing the Fund’s strategic framework, including the work with strategic partnerships and the development of new approaches to funding international collaborations. She is currently responsible for managing the Fund’s major global initiative Globus. Ms Syrjäläinen has an education both within political and social science and music, and she has previously worked with strategic communication and as musician both in Finland and Denmark.

Ms Alison Tickell established Julie’s Bicycle in 2007 as a non-profit company helping the music industry reduce its environmental impacts and develop new thinking in tune with global environmental challenges. Julie’s Bicycle has since extended its remit to the performing and visual arts, heritage and the wider creative and cultural policy communities. Julie’s Bicycle is acknowledged as a leading organisation bridging sustainability with the arts and culture.

Originally trained as a cellist, Ms Tickell worked with seminal jazz improviser and teacher John Stevens. In the UK, she worked for many years at Community Music and at Creative and Cultural Skills where she established the National Skills Academy. She has been on many advisory and awarding bodies including Observer Ethical Awards, RCA (Royal College of Art, UK) Sustainable Design Awards, D&AD White Pencil Awards. She has been on the boards of the Music Business Forum, Live Music and Sound Connections, and is on the board of Energy Revolution. She is an Ashoka Fellow.

Ms Julie Trébault is the director of the Artists at Risk Connection (ARC), a project of PEN America that aims to safeguard the right to artistic freedom by connecting threatened artists to support, building a global network of resources for artists at risk, and forging ties between arts and human rights organisations. She has nearly two decades of experience in international arts programming and network-building, including at the Museum of the City of New York, the Center for Architecture, the National Museum of Ethnology in The Netherlands, and the Musée du quai Branly in Paris.

As the Director of the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike), Ms Paula Tuovinen oversees the management and development of Taike’s activities. She is responsible for the coordination of Taike’s expert bodies – the Central Arts Council and the national and regional arts councils and ensures the promotion of Finnish arts. Ms Tuovinen also serves as a referendary to the Central Arts Council.

Ms Tuovinen previously held the position of vice rector at University of the Arts Helsinki. She is a former dancer, with the dance work Blondi (2000) to her credit. Ms Tuovinen holds a master's degree in Philosophy.

Mr Anthony Turua is the Secretary of the Ministry of Cultural Development and is currently serving his third term in this role. Mr Turua has nearly 40 years of experience in the Cook Islands public sector, having held various senior management roles in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Management and the Ministry of Education. He served as the President of the Cook Islands Workers Association (Trade Union) for almost two decades and is the Secretary and Treasurer for the Cook Islands Rugby Union, for 22 years.

During his previous two terms as Secretary of Cultural Development, Mr Turua led the consultation and development of the first ever National Cultural Policy and Strategy 2017-2030 which was endorsed by the cabinet in 2018. Under his leadership, the ministry has actively promoted the digitisation of audio and visual services of the Cook Islands performing arts to reach a global audience. 

Mr Turua’s current focus is delivering a National Cultural Policy and Strategy focusing on strengthening of the Cook Islands Maori language; preserving and promoting the country's history and historical places; and promoting its cultural industry. He also has significant role in partnership with Regional and International Agencies such as South Pacific Commission - SPC, Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), UNESCO, WIPO, IFACCA and the development cooperation between the African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of States and the European Union (ACP-EU).

Dr Laszlo Upor is a Hungarian dramaturg, literary translator, essayist and university professor. He is specialised, mostly, in contemporary drama and performing arts. As a dramaturg, he has worked with most of the leading mainstream companies in Hungary and with a great number of independent artists, physical and puppet theatres.

A recipient of various grants, Dr Upor spent two years as resident dramaturg at literary departments of major theatres in London, New York, and Dublin. His translations include novels, non-fiction and over 50 stage plays. He has published two books and numerous articles on theatre, film, and contemporary circus.

Dr Upor is former Acting Rector of University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest where he had been teaching for over three decades, until he resigned protesting the orchestrated government attack on higher education. He is founding member of Freeszfe Society, an autonomous institution of education and creation.

Dr Upor is currently Elkana Fellow at The New Institute in Hamburg.

Mr Kim West is a critic, researcher, and editor, based in Stockholm. His research focuses on the contemporary development of critical aesthetic thought, the cultural history of popular avantgardes, and the institutional and technical transformations of art’s forms of mediation. His recent publications include Kritik av konstens frihet: en motrapport (Critique of the Freedom of Art: A Counter-Report, co-authored with Gustav Strandberg and Josefine Wikström; English-language version forthcoming in the Nordic Journal of Aesthetics, fall 2023). 

Mr West is a founding member of the independent, multidisciplinary research group Agentur (agentur.ooo). He currently works at the department of Aesthetics at Södertörn University, where he co-directs the research project Autonomy, Culture, Action: On Culture’s Spheres of Political Action in the Neoliberal Welfare State (funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, 2021–24), together with Gustav Strandberg and Josefine Wikström.

Ms Sara Whyatt is a campaigner and researcher on freedom of artistic expression and human rights, notably as the director of PEN International’s freedom of expression programme for over 20 years and previously as the coordinator of Amnesty International’s Asia Research Department. At PEN, she worked with its global membership mobilising its campaigns for writers at risk as well as on other issues affecting freedom of expression including anti-terror legislation, criminal defamation laws, and actions by non-state entities, among others. 

In 2013, Ms Whyatt took up freelance consultancy, working on projects for Freemuse, PEN International, the Swedish Arts Council, Council of Europe among others. She also works with UNESCO, developing training programmes for governments and civil society organisations (CSOs), as well as monitoring and reporting strategies to promote artistic freedom under the UNESCO 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. 

Dr Alexandra Xanthaki was appointed UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights in October 2021. Dr Xanthaki is Professor of Laws at Brunel University London, United Kingdom. A leading expert on cultural rights, she has over 50 publications varying from cultural rights of minorities and indigenous peoples to cultural diversity, cultural heritage, balancing cultural rights with other rights and interests, and multicultural aspects of international human rights law.

Dr Xanthaki pursued a doctorate at Keele University, UK, on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the United Nations under the supervision of Patrick Thornberry and has a master's degree in Human Rights and Emergency Law from Queen's University, Belfast. She has previously worked closely with several mandates at the United Nations and has advised States on human rights issues.

Dr Xanthaki is a member of the Summer Human Rights Faculty in Oxford. She is well known as the founder of the awarded Athens Refugee Project, where students have volunteered since early 2016 with refugee civil society organisations.

Ms Kira Xonorika is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher, and writer. Her work explores the connections between technology, gender and geopolitics: futurism, AI collaboration, trans and queer temporalities, dynamics between the Global North and South, indigenous sovereignty and Web3. They recently edited an issue of the GenderIT journal, Trans Perspectives on Technology & Politics from Latin America. Their writing has been published by e-flux, Cambridge University, and Tonantzin. They have recently given lectures at King's College London, the University of Eau Claire, the University of Buenos Aires and have spoken at the Generation Equality Forum/United Nations. They are a 2023 Salzburg Global Seminar Fellow and a Momus/EyebeamNYC Critical Writing Fellow.

Ms Liwaa Yazji is an established filmmaker, screenwriter, playwright and poet. She lived and worked in Damascus, where she obtained her degrees in English Literature and Theatre Studies. She has several publications: Here in the Park (play), In Peace We Leave Home (poetry collection which was translated into English and published under the title Three Poems) and Saved (a translation of Bond`s play into Arabic). After that she moved to pursue her work projects in Beirut and then in Berlin.

Ms Yazji’s work is internationally celebrated: her debut feature documentary, Haunted premiered in FID Marseille and won the Jury Mention Special Prize and Al-Waha Bronze in FIFAG Tunisia. Her play, Goats premiered in the Royal Court Theatre in London. Her play, Q & Q, on the debate of giving birth under conditions of violence, was commissioned by the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. She was awarded the prestigious Berliner fellowship for non-German speaking authors. She is a Berlinale Talent, and her feature documentary, Hostage is part of DOC Station Berlinale and DOK Fest Munich Market and won a Prize from the Documentary Association of Europe. She was a resident at the Poets House, New York. She co-wrote Qaid Majhoul, a mini-series produced for OSN in 2020, and has received the Doha Film Institute Development Grant for her coming project HEIM (co-writing and directing). She wrote the libretto for the music theatre\opera, Songs for Days to Come which premiered at Osnabrück Theatre. She received a grant from Meta Theatre to work on her upcoming play, Terror. She is a member of the General Assembly of Ettijahat-Independent Culture and Nawras - For Artists.

Ms Trinidad Zaldívar is Chief at the Creativity & Culture Unit within the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) sector of Knowledge, Innovation & Communications. She is a specialist in the Creative and Cultural Industries and her work also harnesses the worlds of culture and creativity to infuse innovative thinking into the full spectrum of the Bank’s work.

Prior to moving to the US, Ms Zaldívar balanced academia and the private sector. At the age of 25, she founded and managed her own company, which aimed at bringing culture closer to the people and activities of private companies. She produced and published books on history and art; corporate, educational, and cultural institution histories; as well as art exhibits and script writing. During that time, she graduated with a PhD in History at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and Universitè Paris 1, Pantheon Sorbonne. Afterwards, she began a career as a university professor and researcher.

Upon moving to the United States, she worked at several international organisations. She joined the Organization of the American States (OAS) to lead the OAS museum's fundraising and development efforts, as well as updating the museum’s mission and vision. Then, she moved briefly to the World Bank, where she was part of the Change Management Process that the organisation was undergoing at that moment.