Leicester City Takeover: Team and Selection Panel Announcement
UKNA is delighted to announce the project team and selection panel for our next City Takeover, Leicester 2021.
Project Team
The Leicester 2021 Project Team will work with the selected artists, partners and venues to curate, programme and produce the City Takeover. The team bring a diverse range of experience and interests and UKNA is excited for them to create and shape an incredible experience for artists and audiences alike.
Jiten Anand
Project Manager: Logistics and Events
Jiten Anand is the Managing Director of Inspirate, a social enterprise that creates inspirational experiences that connects people with 21st century culture. Founded whilst he was on a university placement, Jiten has been instrumental in establishing the organisation and bringing to life a pioneering breadth of arts events through his work in Leicester. His flagship projects include; An Indian Summer, marking the 70th anniversary of the subcontinents partition with one of the biggest festivals of South Asian culture in the UK, and Bring The Paint, an award winning international graffiti festival, collaborating with artists from 19 countries across the world. Jiten is also Co-chair of Leicester Arts Festivals and Trustee of Pedestrian.
Olwen Davies
Producer: Live Work
Olwen Davies is a programmer, producer, lecturer and artist specialising in live performance and practice. Over the past decade Olwen has toured across the UK with her theatre company LaPelle’s Factory and collaborated with multiple creatives and venues as a solo practitioner. In 2017 she became a founding member of The Party Somewhere Else collective, where she focuses on programming, event management and coordination. Since 2014 has worked in multiple Higher Education Institutions including the Universities of Lincoln and Worcester, facilitating students to develop their performance practice and actualise their work.
Olwen strongly believes in the creation and sharing of art and in supporting and growing creative talent. She is passionate about building a thriving arts and cultural ecology, providing opportunities to all, showcasing excellence and facilitating growth.
G Sian
City Ambassador
As City Ambassador, G will be nourishing Leicester's arts ecology by engaging students, artists, and audiences, and nurturing the legacy outcomes to ensure the arts and cultural activity of the city are meaningfully sustainable.
G is an ideas-led Arts Council England funded ChangeMaker who makes human and conceptual connections, drawing on research, integrated thinking and interpretation. He strategically locates individual specificity within a broader context and thoroughly considers the requirements of a place or creative ecology. He shapes vision and gains support by collaborating on decisions and actions rooted in a deep understanding of the power of art and creative practice.
For 22 years G has been a committed campaigner for equality and artists rights, challenging conventional procedure and supporting new talent. As a cultural provocateur, G has a preference to pull the divisions - before pushing boundaries - and advocates common purpose through mutualism.
Since 2006 G has been a multidisciplinary creative practitioner as sianbetween (until 2012) and inkMilk (since 2016), and an independent producer, tutor and mentor, most recently developing TMoA.
Sophie Mak-Schram
Producer: Interdisciplinary Residencies
Sophie Mak-Schram is an arts producer, historian, educator and occasional practitioner, whose past projects include Overheard Map and Tail Bend Travel. She is currently working with the Cera Project, a contemporary arts organisation for art that falls outside of current Euro-American narratives. Sophie's interests include alternative forms of knowledge, collaborative practices and socially-engaged work.
Saziso Phiri
Curator: Visual, Applied and Digital Arts
Saziso Phiri is a Cultural Producer and Curator, working independently and in partnership with organisations and individuals. She entered the arts as a teenager through a programme to encourage young people to engage with contemporary art. She went on to pursue Photography, History of Art and Film Studies at college, whilst working as a filmmaker and photographer before studying Politics and International Studies at Loughborough University. Her diverse educational background has helped inform many of the themes explored in her curatorial practice.
She previously worked for NAE (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.
Selection Panel
We are excited to be working with a wide range of talented artists, producers, curators and experts across all art forms. The selectors are representatives of galleries, performance spaces and organisations in the host city, as well as independent artists from further afield.
The selectors will be joined by representatives of the UKNA Board of Trustees, Arts Council England and the Leicester City Takeover 2021 team.
Julia Cheng
Performance
Julia Cheng is a Creative Director, choreographer and movement artist working professionally for 15 years. She founded House of Absolute in 2014, a female collective specialising in inter-disciplinary art, Hip Hop and contemporary dance. Her work investigates questions of art as activism, cultural displacement and intersectionality .
Julia has considerable stage and theatre commissions including works for London Jazz Festival, Roundhouse, Sadlers Wells Theatre, V&A Museum, Southbank Centre, Birmingham Hippodrome, Contour London Symphony Orchestra, British Council Cairo, Wilderness Festival, China Changing Festival, Jazz Refreshed, Love Supreme Festival, University of Hertfordshire, University of Bedfordshire and many more.
Having judged, won and competed in many Hip Hop battles since 2007, most recently, Julia participated as a judge/mentor for BBC Young Dancer 2019. She was also a runner-up recipient of the Arts Foundation Futures Award 2019 for Hip Hop Dance. Her prolific reputation has led to campaigns with Dr Martens, Vogue Italia, Wella, Kowtow New Zealand and BBC World Service Persia.
In addition she teaches and is a mentor for Bedford Creative Arts, Breakin’ Convention, BBC Young Dancer and am founder of Grassroots Luton, a local non-funded initiative to support grassroots artists in Luton. International work has involved teaching in Hong Kong, Egypt, France and Spain.
Other commissions include:
2016: University of Hertfordshire Heritage Hub to collaborate with senior lecturer Janice Norwood (Women in Theatre specialist);
2015-2020: annual commission for Chinese Arts Now. February 2020 at Southbank Centre with Papergang Theatre.
2017: British Council Cairo UK choreographer role in Egypt;
2018: Regional projects funded by The Culture Trust, Luton, and Luton Arts Fund – in 2018 this was to curate a multidisciplinary collision between dance and visual arts
2019: Evening of her works with House of Absolute at the ICA London presented by Skin Deep;
2020: Working with University of Bedfordshire since 2017, 2020 commission to create a work on MA Dance students performed in Bedfordshire and Malta January 2020.
Munotida Chinyanga
Music & Sound
Munotida Chinyanga is a multidisciplinary practitioner creating work through Direction and Sound Design. She’s co-artistic director of the international arts collective, state of the [art]. She has a MA in Theatre Arts focusing on Multidisciplinary practices, Sonic Art and International Collaboration. Munotida has worked at venues such as; The Young Vic, The Gate Theatre (A Small Place, 2018), Pleasance Theatre (Ali and Dahlia, 2019), Oxford Northwall, Royal Exchange Manchester (CUTTIN’ IT, 2020), CLEANBREAK (Inside This Box, 2020) and RCSSD (After Mrs Rochester, 2020).
In 2019, Munotida was assistant director to Kwame Kwei-Armah (Artistic Director of the Young Vic) on Tree, an immersive theatrical experience created with Idris Elba, premiering at Manchester’s International Festival and then performed at the Young Vic theatre.
International work includes Creative Europe residences in Serbia (2016), France (2017) and Malta (2017). Her residencies usually focus on how theatre/ performance and sonic art can facilitate the making or bringing together of a community, especially in environments that do not have a constant connection to the arts. Munotida has directed productions and delivered masterclasses at Teatro India, The National Theatre of Rome and Teatro di Akrai, The National Institute of Ancient Drama, Sicily. At the National Theatre of Rome, she worked on ways we can mediate dialogue that is cross cultural creating both sonic and performative experiences for audiences. She also produced work for the 2019 YIYUAN TANG Museum & Foundation in China supported by UKNA. As part of the British Council Theatre and Dance, she has participated in the IETM RIEJKA 2019. She was an associate lecturer at Central Saint Martin for BA Performance: Design and Practice. Munotida was also a judge for the Theatre & Technology Awards 2019 for Creative Innovation in Sound.
Charlotte Cullen
Interdisciplinary Residencies
Artist and researcher Charlotte Cullen creates environments grounded in the land, working through sculpture, installation and text. Scavenged and ephemeral materials entwine with formal material enquiries in metal and clay. Site is enacted as geological space for excavation, symbiotic (un)learning, resistance and healing. Intergenerational trauma, sickness and the body are manifest as material, physical encounters.
A member of artist-led studio and project space serf, Leeds, Cullen is involved in serf off-site projects and serf school, serf’s peer to peer learning programme. Since 2019 they have taught Fine Art at York St John University. Previously they were founder and curator of U N N A W A Y, Huddersfield. Their research considers a material repositioning of artist-led practice and ecologies, framing an embodied aspirational material politics in relation to access and contemporary austerity politics. They completed their practice led PhD at the University of Huddersfield in 2019.
Garth Gratrix
Interdisciplinary Residencies
Garth Gratrix lives and works in the north west.
Gratrix is a visual artist, curator and founding director of Abingdon Studios.
He has an international portfolio focussing on the development of LGBTQIA+ representation in the arts and peripheral coastal cultures and platforms for high quality emergent artistic talent.
Rachel Graves
Visual & Applied Arts
Rachel is the Visual Arts Officer at Attenborough Arts Centre where she is responsible for the exhibitions programme across the centre's four gallery spaces. Rachel also manages Attenborough Arts Centre's visual arts commissioning programme which supports early career artists to develop new work, take risks and access opportunities to further their career. Attenborough Arts Centre is the University of Leicester's arts centre, and champions emerging talent and disability-led artists, supporting those starting their careers. Recent exhibitions include 'Sargy Mann: Let it be felt that the painter was there' and 'Kelly Richardson: Mariner 9'. In previous roles with the Arts Council Collection and The Hepworth Wakefield, Rachel has worked on major national and international touring programmes as well as the care, research and display of modern & contemporary sculpture.
G Sian
Digital & Film
G is an ideas-led Arts Council England funded ChangeMaker who makes human and conceptual connections, drawing on research, integrated thinking and interpretation. He strategically locates individual specificity within a broader context and thoroughly considers the requirements of a place or creative ecology. He shapes vision and gains support by collaborating on decisions and actions rooted in a deep understanding of the power of art and creative practice.
For 22 years G has been a committed campaigner for equality and artists rights, challenging conventional procedure and supporting new talent. As a cultural provocateur, G has a preference to pull the divisions - before pushing boundaries - and advocates common purpose through mutualism.
Since 2006 G has been a multidisciplinary creative practitioner as sianbetween (until 2012) and inkMilk (since 2016), and an independent producer, tutor and mentor, most recently developing TMoA.
Jenny Hibberd
Literature
Poet by surprise Jenny “hibword” Hibberd is a lateral thinker, artist, designer and musician who freelances for charities and organisations across the midlands. Her work spans immersive installation art, performance, graphic design and outreach workshop delivery engaging diverse vulnerable groups with lyric writing, music, arts and crafts.
James Hickford
Music & Sound
DJ, Promoter, Marketing Manager
Promoter of music, events, exhibitions and festivals for over a decade in Leicester and across the East Midlands.
I lead the Leicester based, The Promised Land DJ collective; we play in bars, venues and events across the midlands and beyond including Last Friday at LCB Depot, The Tree (Leicester), Jam Garden (Loughborough), Neighbourhood (Leamington Spa), The Malt Cross (Nottingham) and Café Belgique (Amsterdam) with new radio shows on Purple Radio (London) and Rising Edge Radio (Yorkshire).
City Lead for Sofar Sounds Leicester, establishing this in the city for two years, booking acts and venues, marketing and press for the secret, pop-up events across the city in bike shop, art gallery, fashion boutique, event spaces and churches.
Marketing graduate from De Montfort University, I’m Marketing Manager for Leicester’s Museums and Galleries, Leicester Festivals programme and promote events and activities across the city centre with audience figures annually from 750,000 – 1,000,000 people. In this role I also worked closely with the UKYA team promoting the Leicester Festival in 2014 and really excited to see the range of submissions, venues and residencies of this years UK New Artists back in Leicester!
Image: Hannah Davis
Catherine Hemelryk
Visual & Applied Arts
Catherine Hemelryk is Director of CCA Derry~Londonderry, External Examiner for Birmingham School of Art and Fellow of the RSA. Her previous positions include Artistic Director at NN Contemporary Art, Northampton, Curator at CAC Vilnius as well as curating independent projects in Belgrade, Berlin and across the UK. She has an artist-centred approach to curating and has participated in curatorial residencies in HMK Hoorn, GeoAIR Tbilisi and last year Sea Foundation, Tilburg.
She is a visiting lecturer, mentor, editor and consultant commissioner and activist. She studied Fine Art at Newcastle University and MA Curating Contemporary Art at Royal College of Art as well as Politics and Government at the Open University.
Cara Nahaul
Visual & Applied Arts
Cara Nahaul (b. 1987, London, UK) is an artist living and working in London. She received a BA from Goldsmiths University, London and an MFA from Parsons The New School for Design, New York. Her work has been the subject of recent solo exhibitions at Trade Gallery and Christine Park Gallery. She has been selected for the John Moores prize twice, the inaugural Jerwood Painting Fellowship, nominated for the Contemporary British Painting Prize and completed a yearlong studio residency at the Florence Trust. Her forthcoming solo exhibition with gallerist Taymour Grahne will open in Autumn 2020.
Nicky Rafferty
Literature
Nicky trained as an actor in the early nineties and has worked as a performance storyteller ever since. Nicky’s work has included family story walks in Sherwood Forest and storytelling workshops and events for Rufford Country Park, Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust, The National Trust, Nottingham Castle Exhibitions and Galleries and The Nottingham Contemporary.
Nicky was storyteller in residence for Nottinghamshire Libraries during the National Year of Reading and continues to work extensively in the East Midlands with theatres, schools, pre school providers and parent groups, residential and nursing homes promoting the joys and benefits of storytelling.
Gea Russell
Music & Sound
Gea Russell began his career in the early 90s as part of experimental hip hop group 3:6 Philly.
He was among the first handful of students to attend Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies when it first opened its doors in 1994. He went on to work there as a sound engineer and tutor.
Following his time at Confetti he founded Rub Recordings record label in 2000, releasing the debut and follow up album for two time Mercury Prize nominated band, Polar Bear. The label also licensed and released albums by BBC Jazz Award winners Acoustic Ladyland and jazz – rap pioneer Soweto Kinch among others.
In an effort to help promote the acts on his label he began representing them as their European booking agent. In more recent years his agency has represented several leading artists from the current British Jazz explosion including; Sons of Kemet (led by Shabaka Hutchings). Other artists from his roster include; The Last Poets founding member Gylan Kain (Kain The Poet), author, rapper and educator Akala and rising star Ayanna Witter-Johnson.
Upon relocating to Belgium he founded The Writer's Bench (non profit arts organisation) for which he is the creative director, curating and hosting events that are held in various European cities.
The long list of notable guests include; Linton Kwesi Johnson, Anthony Joseph, Afrika Bambaataa, Lou Donaldson, Courtney Pine, Rodney P, Akala, Saul Williams, Cory Henry, Makaya McCraven, Mulatu Astatke, Nubya Garcia and Don Letts.
His additional role as director and principal interviewer for TWB-TV, their online channel, has resulted in the production of over 40 short video reportages of their live events.
He has directed and produced several music videos and documentaries along side his on going career as a recording artist and dj.
Mr Shay
Literature
Mr Shay is a Leicester based Poet and Rapper. His poetry is influenced by social topics, culture and heritage and often incorporates rhythm and rhyme, to paint vivid pictures through words. Shay has made a name as the poet of Leicester and regularly receives commissions by BBC Radio to convey social commentary through his lyrical paintings. Commissions include The Urban Shepherd, a contemporary take on the shepherds’ story of the Christmas Nativity, Golden Mile, a poem voicing the rich South Asian heritage of Leicester’s vibrant landmark and his latest piece titled, Still Standing, a poem celebrating the acts of kindness and support shown by local people throughout lockdown. Shay’s most recent solo poetry show was titled, Brown Paper and featured a collection of original poems narrating his family’s journey of immigration, his up-bringing and his relationship with his home city.
Instagram and Twitter: @mrshay_artist
Facebook: Mr Shay
Chris Slowe
Digital & Film
Chris is the Creative Learning officer at LCB Depot. As a student and freelancer he worked in photography, film, animation, graphic and web design. After working at The City Gallery he moved on to organise many exhibitions and events with Leicester’s visual arts community. At LCB Depot he helps curate the creative industries programme bringing together students, established professionals and academics to explore different types of creativity (from Fashion to Digital Art) through exhibitions, workshops, discussions, screenings, and online events. He also manages LCB’s family day and organises career events for young people. Chris is a passionate advocate for the access and development of creativity.
Hugo Worthy
Visual & Applied Arts
Hugo Worthy is the Arts Curator at Leicester Gallery, De Montfort University. Before taking on this role he ran the contemporary art programmes at New Walk Museum and Art Gallery and before this was the curator at The City Gallery in Leicester. Over his fifteen years working as a curator he has developed particular research interests around collecting and display of performative works and artistic practices focussed on models of engagement and learning. He has curated monographic exhibitions by Gerhard Richter, Jonathan Monk and Monster Chetwynd working with partner organisations including The Art Fund, Tate and Siobhan Davies Dance.
John Kirby
Performance
John Kirby is the Programming Officer at Attenborough Arts Centre. Before taking on this role he worked across Leicester’s art scene at New Walk Museum, The City Gallery, 27a Access Artspace and Pocklington’s Gallery in a number of different roles. He has been working closely in the Leicester Arts Scene for over 15 years. As well as this John has co-founded Wrestling Resurgence with arts practitioners and academics whose key aim is to celebrate and recognise professional wrestling as an art form.