Creative ThinkTank

Gaynor Tutani

Gaynor Tutani (Art Adlib) is a curator, producer and writer who merges her various arts, culture, community and educational passions to produce exhibitions, events and commentaries on art and curating. Her speciality is in public programming - hosting music performances, talks, interviews and poetry programs.

She is the Co-founder of EARTHworks [Artists], a curatorial duo that is dedicated to promoting creative collaborations through an intergenerational lens. Their work aims to raise awareness of the benefits of art and art making practices to health and well-being, alongside global issues such as climate change, equality and diversity.

Tutani holds a BA in History and History of Ideas from Goldsmith's university of London and is currently undertaking postgraduate studies in Museum Cultures at Birkbeck University of London, specialising in curating African art, Difficult Histories and Decolonial approaches.

Malgorzata Lisiecka

Malgorzata Lisiecka is a visual artist, practising between public art, installation, costume, and performance. 

Limits, excess, exploitation: these are words that define the object of her focus. Exploring the political and psychological aspects of fashion, her art balances on the edge of the uncanny, absurd and unreal. 

Following the connection between art and social issues, she decided to study sculpture and journalism at the same time. After graduating from the Academy in Warsaw, she moved to London, where confronts her ideas in a completely different, socio-political territory. 

She received an MA in Contemporary Art Practice: Public Sphere at theRoyal College of Art in London and was nominated for the UK YoungArtist of the Year Award. Her artistic journey continues.

SLQS

SLQS is a Franco-Vietnamese artist living in East London. Her work is multi-disciplinary and provocative: it questions the politics of space and who is excluded from it. She reclaims space by immersing herself and others in the public realm. SLQS makes and holds space as a woman, a person of mixed heritage, a foreigner, a mother, an artist and an equestrian. She invites her audience to decolonise spatial orders from imperialist, sexist and racist structures.

SLQS works in a wide range of media that includes, but is not limited to, performance, live art, photography, writing, walking and visual art.

She is also the co-creator of the performance making company Convex. Through immersive sound experiences, they give voice to threatened environments.

Saziso Phiri

Saziso Phiri is a Cultural Producer and Curator, working independently and in partnership with organisations and individuals.

She previously worked for New Art Exchange, within the organisation's creative team, supporting its public programme and overseeing exhibitions within the building’s Central Gallery space. In 2017, she initiated Young, Black & Present, a now annual programme of events centred around the young Black-British experience. Saziso also helped establish ABC (All Black Connect), NAE's young people's collective which explores issues impacting young black people in the UK today.

Saziso manages The Anti Gallery, a pop-up art gallery launched in 2016 and initially inspired by her love of graffiti and street art. Since launching, she has produced and co-produced almost 30 events for the platform, from exhibitions, to film screenings, artists talks, performances, creative workshops and residencies. Some of the organisations that the platform has collaborated with on projects and events include Nottingham Contemporary, Sadler’s Wells, Surface Gallery and Broadway Cinema. Alongside The Anti Gallery, Saziso works on projects across various  disciplines, which have previously included Format International Photography Festival, Migration Matters Festival and Frequency Festival. She currently works within the core organising team for Nuart Festival in Stavanger, Norway, and its sister festival in Aberdeen, Scotland. She is also a founding member of SHEAfriq, a collective of black women artists. 

Saziso was the Curator of Applied, Digital and Visual Arts at UKNA City Takeover: Leicester 22.

Sophie Mak-Schram

Sophie Mak-Schram is an art historian, producer, educator and occasional practitioner. She has been, amongst other things, one founding half of Overheard Map, an annual residency project that experiments with how artists work together, one half of Tail Bend Travel, a (sometimes fictional) tour company that offers unexpected walking/video/performance tours, one part of Cera Project, a curatorial platform for art of the non-West, and one part of PACTO, an international art collective. Sophie likes to think and work with other people around how knowledge is constituted through or around art, and what political, social and cultural implications these knowledges have. She is specifically interested in decolonial and feminist approaches, radical pedagogies and collective practices.

Sophie was the Interdisciplinary Residencies Producer at UKNA City Takeover: Leicester 2022 and the Curator of UKNA Weekender #5, Derry~Londonderry.

Quinn Rushforth

Quinn Rushforth (He/Him) is a performer and founder of Scum! Collective, who have created work such as ‘Veritas Rex’ a play about a dystopian future where Virtual Reality is everything, as well as an aspiring producer for the arts in Lincolnshire. 

He is based in Lincoln, attending the University of Lincoln with a degree in Drama and Theatre and is currently studying an MA in Arts and Cultural Management. Having a keen interest in the arts ecologies of both Lincoln and other cities in the UK. 

Quinn’s work is often provocative and looks to not tell someone an issue is bad but to show you just how bad it could be.

Quinn did not grow up around art and has a strong desire to change that for others believing everyone should have the opportunity to both create and consume all forms of art. Wanting to break down barriers between the arts and other sectors.

Ronia Iheama

Ronia Iheama is currently a sixth form student in Nottingham. She is a previous nominee and winner of a Nottingham's Young Creatives Award in the Creative Writing category. She enjoys creative writing, song writing and singing.