2019

Amanda is a RIBA Stirling Prize winning architect and founder and principal of AL_A. She previous ran the studio Future Systems, served as a trustee of the arts organisation Artangel from 2000 to 2013, and is a trustee of the Young Foundation. She has designed some extraordinary buildings, from Lisbon’s MAAT, the Museum of Art, Architecture & Technology, to the Exhibition Road Quarter at London’s V&A. In the 2017 Queen's Birthday Honours Amanda Levete was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), for services to architecture and this year she was awarded the Jane Drew Prize by The Architects’ Journal and The Architectural Review.

An award-winning journalist, critic and curator, Justin is currently the chief curator at the Design Museum and the co-head of Design Curating & Writing at Design Academy Eindhoven. Previously, he was the director of Strelka Press, the design columnist for The Guardian and the editor of Icon magazine. He is also the author of Radical Cities: Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture. In 2012 he was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture for an exhibition he curated with Urban Think Tank.

Theo is an architect and educator. He is the Director of the Architectural Association’s world -renowned Design Research Lab in London. In 2002 he founded the experimental architecture and design practice Minimaforms whose work is included in the collections of the FRAC Centre (France), the Signum Foundation (Poland) and the Archigram Archive (UK). Recent exhibitions have included work shown at the MoMA, Barbican Centre, Detroit Institute of Arts, ICA (London). In 2013 the Association for Computer-Aided Design in Architecture awarded him The ACADIA Award of Excellence for his educational work directing the AADRL.

With almost two decades of curatorial expertise Helen was appointed as the new Director of Tate Liverpool in summer 2018. She is also an external adviser to the Arts Council Collection Acquisitions Committee, a member of Arts Council England South West Area Council, and the chair of Visual Arts South West. A Director of Bristol’s Spike Island since 2010 her work included creating programmes to support emerging artists. In 2014 she was a judge for the Turner Prize and in 2017 was part of the selection committee for the British representations at the Venice Biennale 2017.

Working between the UK and the USA, Maciej is a visual artist, curator and academic and currently a tutor at the Royal Academy Schools. In 2015 he organised a critically acclaimed series of exhibitions entitled 10 One-Night Stands. The same year he received a prestigious ACE Award for Work of Art in Religious Context for his installation HS in St Michael’s Church in Camden, London. In 2016 Maciej opened gallery URBANEK in South Dulwich.

Curator and writer, George is currently a teaching fellow in curating at Newcastle University and is working on upcoming projects for BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Arts, Gateshead. In 2017 he curated the Turner Prize 2017 at Ferens Arts Gallery in Hull and from 2014-16 he was curator at the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland. In addition to his curating, Vasey’s writing also regularly features in publications such as Art Review, Art Monthly and Frieze and was previously writer in residence at the Jerwood Space, London.

David Hieatt is an entrepreneur and an expert on fashion, retail, sustainability and branding. In 2001 he moved back to his hometown of Cardigan in Wales where he started a company called Howies producing eco-friendly clothes. In 2007 David and Clare Hieatt developed The Do Lectures, a globally acclaimed ideas festival and online resource for creative thinkers and entrepreneurs. Recently he has developed Hiut Denim, a jeans company that is helping to bring back the jeans industry to Cardigan where Britain’s largest jeans factory was once located.

Martina is a leading specialist in contemporary craft. Senior Tutor of Critical and Historical Studies at the Royal College of Art, she is also on the advisory board of the Journal of Modern Craft and of the journal Craft Research. Previous roles have included nine years as editor of Crafts magazine and curator of exhibitions for Arts Council England, the British Council and the V&A among others. Her books include International Crafts (1991), Michael Rowe (2003) and Tord Boontje (2007).

Dutch designer Sarah van Gameren set up Studio Glithero in 2007 with her partner Tim Simpson. Glithero began producing works that combined two great mediums: innovative design and experimental construction. The work is presented in a broad spectrum of media, but follows a consistent conceptual path; to capture and present the beauty in the moment things are made. The studio has been featured in countless design magazines and has exhibited internationally.

Dance specialist, Delia Barker is currently Programmes Director at The Roundhouse where she oversees the music, performing arts, and youth policy teams and is involved in both the artistic output and charitable programme at the venue. She is also Chair of the Board for Studio Wayne McGregor and part of Arts Council England’s National Portfolio. Her previous role was as Director at the English National Ballet School and she also worked with Drake Music, Theatre Peckham and Stop Gap Dance Company.

Benji is a creative producer, devisor and director and is one of the UK's pioneers of hip-hop theatre and culture. His theatre performances have played to sell out audiences at the National Theatre, Sadler’s Wells, the Sydney Opera House and Greenwich Village Theatre, NYC. Benji received a NESTA Dreamtime Fellowship, awarded to prestigious artists for their outstanding achievements and continuing development and was nominated for the Art05 award for his work in the Northwest of England. In recent times, he has begun to cultivate a career in the medium of photography.

Kenrick is multi-talented and award-winning dancer, choreographer, teacher, actor and co-founder/artistic director of the legendary Boy Blue Entertainment. He is the co-creator and choreographer of the Laurence Olivier award-winning production Pied Piper and was involved in the choreography for the openings of both the 2012 Olympics and the Tour De France in London. He has performed for artists including George Michael, Fergie, The Sugababes, Mis-Teeq, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Big Brovaz, Beverley Knight, and All Saints at promotions, award shows and in videos.

Sarah Howe is Chinese–British poet, editor and researcher in English literature. Her first book, Loop of Jade (Chatto & Windus, 2015) won the T.S. Eliot Prize and The Sunday Times/PFD Young Writer of the Year Award. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and newspapers and she has performed her work at festivals internationally and on BBC Radio 3 & 4. She is currently a Leverhulme Fellow in English at University College London and is the founding editor of Prac Crit, an online journal of poetry and criticism.

Born in New York, Mark grew up in London where he worked in advertising for many years. He begun writing poetry in his early 40s with his first collection of poems The Brand New Dark published by Salt in 2008 followed by The Itchy Sea in 2011. His work has been featured in Identity Parade and New British and Irish Poets published by Bloodaxe in 2010. Waldron was runner-up in the 2006 New Writing Ventures Prize and was named by the Poetry Book Society as one of the Next Generation Poets in their once-in-a-decade list in 2014.

Maria Crawford is journalist and editor for the Weekend section of the Financial Times. She writes about poetry for the books pages, has published the FT's poem of the week and selects the poetry anthologies and collections for FT Books of the Year. She also organises author events for FT Books Café, reviews fiction and commissions features on architecture, design and artisans for FT House & Home.