Panellists:
Errol Francis, Artistic Director and CEO, Culture&
Errol was appointed CEO of Culture& in 2016. His expertise involves community engagement around mental health and the arts with minority groups. Among others, Francis was former Joint Programme Lead at the Sainsbury Centre of Mental Health; Programme Manager for the Inspire Curatorial Fellowship Programme at the Arts Council England; Head of Arts at the Mental Health Foundation and Artistic Director of highly acclaimed public engagement programmes, including the Anxiety Arts Festival London 2014, Acting Out Nottingham 2015 and Hysteria 2017-2018.
Francis is Visiting Professor at the University of West London and was awarded his PhD from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, for his research on postcolonial artistic responses to museums. Lastly, Francis holds a Honorary Doctorate in Letters from the University of West London in 2017.
Henry Hussey, artist, curator and Co-Founder, OHSH Projects
Henry Hussey is a British artist, born in London in 1990 where he still resides. Hussey studied Textiles at Chelsea College of Art before completing an MA in Textiles at the Royal College of Art. His work is widely respected and has been exhibited in notable exhibitions including The Textiel Biennale 2017 at Museum Rijswijk in The Hague, the Art Central in Hong Kong, the Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2014 at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, the Royal Academy London, Volta New York and the Young Talent Contemporary Prize at the Ingram Collection in 2016.
Hussey has participated in residencies at La Vallonea, Tuscany in 2018 and at Palazzo Monti, Milan in 2020. His work is held in collections worldwide including Simmons & Simmons, Hogan Lovells, The Groucho Club and Soho House.
Piers Secunda, artist
Piers Secunda's studio practice has focused on the deliberate destruction of culture for 15 years, with a focus since 2015 on the damage carried out in Iraq by ISIS. Piers travelled to the Iraqi ancient sites during the war against ISIS, with the help and support of both the Iraqi and Kurdish governments and militaries between 2015 and 2018.
In 2018 the Iraqi Culture Minister Fryad Rwandzi allowed Piers access to the Mosul Museum to mould the smashed surfaces of ISIS detroyed sculptures. This resulted in a 2000 piece installation which is currently touring the United States as part of a larger exhibition about the destruction of culture. His close involvement with the Iraqi authorities and Mosul Museum employees and conservators led to Piers being asked to play a diplomatic role, by organising a collaborative exhibition of his ISIS related works in 2018, to help bring the Baghdad and Kurdish region authorities closer together, after war broke out between them in 2017.
Piers has ISIS related work on permanent display in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and is in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad.
Tetyana Filevska, Creative Director, Ukrainian Institute
With a background in art management, curation and writing, Tetyana Filevska is the Creative Director at the Ukrainian Institute. She has a record in Philosophy with experience in Contemporary art and Ukrainian Art History of the 20 century. Among others, Filevska is author of the books “KAZIMIR MALEVICH. Kyiv Period 1928-1930,” “Kazimir Malevich. Kyiv Aspect,” and “Dmytro Gorbachov. Sluchayi”.
Lastly, Filevska curated the public programme for the Ukrainian Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale, dedicated to decolonization.
Tom Seymour, Journalist & Museums & Heritage Editor of The Art Newspaper
Seymour is a multi award-winning journalist with a specialism in arts and film. He is currently the Museums & Heritage Editor of The Art Newspaper, the journal of record for the art world. He edits all museums content in print and online, and often co-hosts the award-winning The Week in Art podcast.
As a freelance journalist, he has published for The Guardian and The Observer and contributed to The New York Times, The Financial Times, FT Weekend, Telegraph and New Statesman, and more and to various outlets of the BBC across digital, radio and television.
Katherine Finerty, Independent Curator & Strategic Partnerships Consultant, Pace Gallery
Finerty is an independent curator, writer, and educator focusing on research-based and socially-engaged practices, translocal identity politics, and global contemporary art. She works collaboratively in guest curatorial roles in London, Ghana, and South Africa to develop alternative cultural discourses and multi-disciplinary art experiences that foster social change and collective storytelling. She was recently Curator & Communications Manager at The Showroom, and currently works as Strategic Partnerships Consultant for Pace Gallery supporting the development of special projects.
Finerty has a Curating MA (Royal College of Art), Art History & Africana Studies BA (Cornell University), and studied History of Art at Cambridge. Institutional experience includes The Studio Museum in Harlem and Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Curatorial Assistant to Elvira Dyangani Ose for GIBCA 2015 (Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art).
