Sharon Ament

Sharon Ament is Director of the Museum of London. She is a cultural ambassador for the Mayor of London and member of the Mayor’s Cultural Leadership Board; on the London Area Council of Arts Council England, Chair of the London Screen Archives and Co-Chair of the Women Leaders in Museums Network, Noyce Leadership Fellow, member of the Conseil Scientifique of Universcience in Paris, and on the International Advisory Board of the ArtScience Museum in Singapore.

Tom Butler

Tom Butler is a Doctoral Researcher at Brunel University researching the impact of culture-led urban development as part of an AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctoral Award with the Museum of London. His work spans editorial, creative production and installation design, focusing on the built environment and projects that reconsider heritage, narrative and place. He currently teaches on MA Narrative Environments at Central Saint Martins, and has previously worked with the V&A, The National Trust, Arup, and the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries.

Judit Carrera

Judit Carrera is the director of the Centre for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB). At the CCCB, she has led the European Prize for Urban Public Space. With more than twenty years’ experience in the areas of culture and international relations, she has been a columnist for the newspapers El País and the Barcelona-based Ara. Before joining the CCCB she worked at UNESCO (Paris) and in the International Relations Department of the Barcelona City Council. She is currently a member of the of the editorial Board of the magazines Barcelona Metropolis and Public Culture.

Gus Casely-Hayford OBE

Dr Gus Casely-Hayford, OBE, the founding Director of V&A East, a museum and collection centre presently under construction. He was previously the Director of the Smithsonian, National Museum of African Art is a curator and cultural historian who writes, lectures and broadcasts widely on culture.

Mónica Degen

Dr Mónica Degen is a Reader in Cultural Urban Sociology at Brunel University London. She has worked on several international research projects with architects, local councils, museum curators and the general public to research urban transformations and the role of the senses in framing architectural practices, everyday life and culture in cities from Doha (Qatar) to Cologne, Barcelona and London, see www.sensorysmithfield.com & www.sensorycities.com Her next book (with G.Rose, Oxford University): “A New Urban Aesthetic: experiencing urban change digitally” (Bloomsbury, 2022) is examining how digital visualisations are transforming urban life.

Pedro Fiori Arantes

Pedro Fiori Arantes is associate professor at the Federal University of São Paulo – Unifesp in the Art History Department. He has authored numerous articles and chapter on architecture and cities, as well five books, the last one The Rent of Form: architecture and labor in the digital age (Minnesota University Press, 2019). Since 2013 he has been also the University Planning Vice-Provost at Unifesp and coordinates the implantation of the Cities Institute.

Yves Goldstein

Yves Goldstein was appointed Director of KANAL Foundation – Center Pompidou in 2017, after working on the creation of the future museum of modern and contemporary art in his position as Director of Cabinet to the Minister-President of the Brussels-Capital Region, Rudi Vervoort and Secretary of Government. Yves Goldstein has participated in the creation and management of many other Brussels initiatives: Brussels International Tourism & Congress (2004 – 2011), Palais des Congrès (since 2004), Parc des Expositions du Heysel (since 2004), Atomium (since 2003 ). He also participated in the creation of the CIVA Foundation, of which he has been appointed Chair in 2016.

Hannah Ishmael

Hannah Ishmael has recently completed her PhD on the development of Black-led archives in London. Hannah is the archivist at Black Cultural Archives, based in South London and lectures on the MA in Archives and Records Management at UCL.

Hilary Jennings

Hilary is part time Director of the Happy Museum Project which explores museum practice that supports the wellbeing of people, place and planet. She is an associate of the Clore Leadership and Extend Leadership programmes and a core group member of the Co-Creating Change network and has worked extensively in the craft sector including founder Director for Craft with the government skills agency Creative and Cultural Skills.  She is Co-Chair of the global grassroots sustainability Transition Network.

Julie’s Bicycle

Julie’s Bicycle is a pioneering non-profit organisation, mobilising the arts and culture to take action on the climate crisis. Founded by the music industry in 2007 and now working across the arts and culture sector, JB has partnered with over 2000 organisations in the UK and internationally. Combining cultural and environmental expertise, JB delivers on high impact programmes to meet the climate and ecological crisis head-on. Change culture, culture changes the world.

Chrischené Julius

Chrischené Julius heads the Collections, Research and Documentation department of District Six Museum and focuses on developing an understanding of how the notion of a community museum and memory work has evolved in relation to a living community that is currently undergoing a land restitution process. Until recently she was Acting Director of District Six, working across varied research, publication and curatorial projects. She is a history and museum studies graduate of the University of the Western Cape and the University of Cape Town.

Asif Khan MBE

Asif Khan Studio was established in 2007 in London to design buildings that support new ways of thinking about the world and ourselves. Recent works include the New Museum of London (alongside lead architects Stanton Williams and conservation architect Julian Harrap), currently under construction, the blackest building on Earth – the Hyundai Pavilion at PyeongChang Winter Olympics 2018, the Carbon-Fibre Expo Entry Portals, and over 6km of public realm at Dubai Expo 2020. A finalist in the competition for the Helsinki Guggenheim Art Museum, Asif was awarded Architect of the Year in 2018 by the German Design Council and received an MBE for services to Architecture in 2017. Asif is currently Deputy Chairman of the board of the Design Museum in London.

Sophia Labadi

Sophia Labadi is Professor of Heritage at the University of Kent in the UK. She also holds a Leadership Fellowship (2019-2021) from the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the UK. Much of Professor Labadi’s research focuses on how heritage sites and museums can address some of the most pressing global challenges, including social justice, gender equality or sustainable development. Her research is nourished by her experiences as consultant for international organisations and governments. Professor Labadi is the author of Heritage and Globalisation (co-edited with Colin Long, Routledge, 2010), UNESCO, Cultural Heritage and Outstanding Universal Value (AltaMira Press, 2012); Urban Heritage, Development and Sustainability (co-edited with Bill Logan, Routledge 2015) and The Cultural Turn in International Aid (Routledge, 2019).

Sarita Malik

Sarita Malik is Professor of Media, Culture and Communications in the Department of Social and Political Sciences, Brunel University London. Sarita has published widely on the relationship between diversity policies and frameworks and practice, cultural representation and policy, and she has particular expertise in the screen sector. Sarita has extensive experience in working collaboratively with institutional, industry, creative and community partners. Since 2011, she has been the Principal Investigator on several Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) collaborative grants that have addressed contemporary concerns around social change, inequality, and cultural representation. Her books include Creativity and Resistance in a Hostile World (MUP, 2020), Community Filmmaking and Cultural Diversity (Routledge, 2017), Adjusting the Contrast: British Television and Constructs of ‘Race’ (MUP, 2017) and Representing Black Britain (Sage, 2000). Sarita has recently published on creative diversity as a form of sociocultural policy, podcasting and anti-racism and how urban genres are formulated on screen. Sarita’s latest project (AHRC, 2021-24) is a longitudinal, collaborative study of the British Film Institute’s diversity policies.

Clare Melhuish

Clare Melhuish is an architectural historian and urban anthropologist, and Director of UCL Urban Laboratory since 2018. Her research concerns the processes and impacts of large-scale architectural and urban developments, with a focus on the intersection with issues of cultural heritage and identity in postcolonial city contexts. She has produced a number of publications on the role of universities in the reproduction of urban space.

Sophie Mepham

Sophie is the Centre Manager for UCL Urban Laboratory. She holds a BA in Museum Studies and an MA in Cultural Heritage Studies with a focus on urban heritage in post-conflict cities, having previously worked on conservation projects in the Middle East and Afghanistan for NGOs and UNESCO. In addition to her Centre Manager role, she also manages UCL’s Grand Challenges programme for Sustainable Cities and Transformative Technology.

Wayne Modest

Wayne Modest is the Director of Content for the National Museum of Worldcultures and the Wereldmuseum, Rotterdam and Head of the Research Center of Material Culture. He is also Professor of Material Culture and Critical Heritage Studies (by special appointment) in the faculty of humanities at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam (VU). Modest was previously Head of the Curatorial Department at the Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam; Keeper of Anthropology at the Horniman Museum in London, and Director of the Museums of History and Ethnography in Kingston, Jamaica.

Paul Moody

Paul Moody is a media historian and filmmaker, whose work has been screened at international film festivals and by broadcasters including the BBC and Channel Four. He is a Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications at Brunel University London, with research interests in how global media can be understood via social, political and historical contexts.

Museum Detox

Museum Detox is a self-initiated grass roots network for people of colour who have experience of working in or with museums, galleries, libraries, archives, and the heritage sector. Established in 2014, by a small group of London based Museum workers, we now have over 500 members. We aim to achieve equity for People of Colour in the sector, by supporting our members and holding institutions to account.

Museum of Homelessness

The Museum of Homelessness is an award winning community led museum which tackles homelessness and housing inequality, created and run by people with direct experience of homelessness. MoH does this through collecting, research, exhibitions, practical support and direct action. During the pandemic MoH worked with grassroots partners to form the COVID19 Homeless Taskforce which provided emergency supplies, human rights representation and solidarity to London’s homeless community throughout 2020 and into 2021. 

Lauren Parker

Lauren Parker is Head of Creative Partnerships at the Museum of London, part of a team building a new Museum of London in West Smithfield. Since 2018 she has been responsible for instigating and delivering programmes, projects and partnerships that support the transformation of historic Smithfield into an extraordinary creative and cultural home for London and Londoners, and which help to test, shape and embody what the future Museum of London can become.

Beatrice Pembroke

Beatrice is the Executive Director, Culture at King’s College, responsible for developing cultural collaborations that support the university’s ambitions in research, education and social impact. Beatrice provides overall strategic leadership for the Culture directorate, which includes the specialist Culture team and Science Gallery London. She joined King’s in 2020 from the Global Cultural Districts Network where she was director of a federation of major cultural organisations committed to improving urban life. Prior to that she was Director of Creative Economy at the British Council, developing partnerships across the cultural sector and beyond in over 30 countries. She holds an MA in Literature and Modern Culture from UCL, is co-founder of the Long Time Project and Tech for Good Global, a trustee of Auto Italia, and is on the Ashoka Ventures Board.

Andrea Phillips

Dr Andrea Phillips is BALTIC Professor and Director of BxNU Research Institute, Northumbria University & BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art. Andrea lectures and writes about the economic and social construction of public value within contemporary art, the manipulation of forms of participation and the potential of forms of political, architectural and social reorganization within artistic and curatorial culture. Her current research project, conducted with artist Jason E Bowman, involves a social and aesthetic re-reading of the British community arts movement from the mid-1970s to the present.

Her forthcoming book Contemporary Art and the Production of Inequality will bring together discussions on the politics of public administration and management with recent analyses of arts institutions, alongside debates on value (public and private) informed by research into the political functions of the art market and personal experience of organizing, lobbying, and governing contemporary arts institutions, arts education institutions, and working directly with artists. (Publications)

Stephen Pritchard

Dr Stephen Pritchard is an independent academic, researcher, community artist, activist, art historian, writer, curator, critical friend and filmmaker.

He lectures internationally and has written several book chapters. His work focuses on issues including community art, community development and cultural development, artwashing, activist art, self-organising, creative placemaking, culture-led regeneration, art in urban contexts, and arts and health.

Cláudia Rose Ribeiro da Silva

Cláudia Rose Ribeiro Da Silva was born in the Maré favela, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She has a Masters degree in Cultural Assets and Social Projects from the Postgraduate Program of CPDOC / FGV-RJ. Between 2009 and 2011, she was head of the Social Museology Centre of the Brazilian Museum Institute (IBRAM). She is a professor of public school history in the city of Rio, co-founder of the Center for Solidarity Studies Action, Maré (CEASM) and coordinator of the Museum of Maré.

Amahra Spence

Amahra Spence is an artist, organiser, designer for social justice movements and spatial practitioner. In 2013, Amahra founded MAIA, an arts and social justice organisation, invested in the radical imagination and systemic transformation through infrastructure building, resource redistribution and cultural programming. MAIA is currently designing an artist-led hotel, ABUELOS, which reinvests the creative industry’s hospitality spend into local people, place and movements. The first phase, YARD – an arthouse and residency space – launched in 2021.

Sara Wajid MBE

Sara is Co-CEO of Birmingham Museum Trust alongside Zak Mensah – this job-share CEO partnership is a first in the museum sector and signals Birmingham Museum Trust’s commitment to inclusive working practices. Sara was formerly Head of Engagement at Museum of London and Head of Interpretation at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in 2017. Before working in museums she was a cultural commentator, journalist and editor. She is a trustee of the Pitt Rivers Museum, a judge of the Museum Activism award, a member of the Museum Detox network for people of colour in museums and an active advocate for diversity and equality issues in the arts.

Paul Williams OBE

OBE, HonD, RDI, FRSA, RIBA, BA (Hons), H.DiplAD

In 1985 Paul Williams co-founded Stanton Williams, the Stirling prize winning architectural practice, with Alan Stanton. 

The practice developed its portfolio from an initial focus on museums and galleries.  It has continued this work in the arts: for example, the British Museum’s Islamic World Galleries and the Musée d’arts de Nantes as well as many temporary exhibitions. Its focus also widened to include projects such as Great Ormond Street Hospital Zayed Centre, the Millennium Seed Bank for the Royal Botanic Gardens, the Sainsbury Laboratory for the University of Cambridge and the campus for Central Saint Martins, UAL. 

As lead architects, alongside Asif Khan and conservation architect Julian Harrap, Stanton Williams are currently entrusted with the transformation of the historic West Smithfield market into the new home for the Museum of London.

Paul was awarded the title of Royal Designer for Industry (RDI) in 2005 for sustained excellence in design throughout his career, and received an honorary doctorate from University of the Arts London in 2012. He received an OBE for services to architecture in 2014. 

Sadie Young

Sadie Young is a researcher, curator and educator and Director of Timespan, a cultural institution in the very north east of the Scottish Highlands with local, global and planetary ambitions to weaponise culture for social change.
Sadie is committed to using the cultural institution as a public space to expand the civic sphere and to respond to social urgencies through communal learning, the production of collective knowledge and lobbying at all levels, and is motivated by those on the coal face fighting for emancipation, liberation and equality.

Claudia Zaldívar

Claudia Zaldívar is an art historian and an expert in cultural policy. Since 2012, she has been Director of the Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende (MSSA) and she was Director of the Gabriela Mistral Gallery in Santiago (2002-10). She has organized significant exhibitions that include Juan Downey: Installations, Drawings and Videos in 1995 and JAAR/SCL/2006. She also has been editor and co-editor of multiple publications that include Art and Politics (with Nelly Richard and Pablo Oyarzún), two catalogues raisonné published in 2013 and 2017 by MSSA, and a large number of exhibition catalogues.