Meet the speakers presenting ideas and discussions on colonial heritage and environmental stewardship.
23 January 2025 | Larnaca, Cyprus
Nicholas Anastasopoulos (PhD) is an associate professor at the School of Architecture of the National Technical University of Athens. His research areas include the relationship between the public and the private with the field of the commons (community or shared resources), and architectural design in relation to the environment and sustainability, with reference to theories of systems, complexity and degrowth. He has taught at universities in the United States and Ecuador, where he carried out his postdoctoral research and maintains collaborations.
Rabiaâ Benlahbib is the founder and director of Creative Court, an initiative developing art projects that reflect on international peace and justice from The Hague, Netherlands. Since 2022, she has also been director and curator of Kunstfort Vijfhuizen, island of heritage, contemporary art and ecology in the polder of Haarlemmermeer. She is a guest teacher at the Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague. Rabiaâ is a jury member of the BNG Bank Heritage Prize for Dutch municipalities, a member of the editorial board of Kunsten 92, the national interest group for the cultural and creative sector in the Netherlands, and a member of the Green Parliament, an advisory body for a Dutch music theatre company.
Portrait photo: Michel Marang
Christos Carras (PhD) has extensive experience working in the cultural sector, including leadership roles at the EU co-funded MediMuses Network, the B & M Theocharakis Foundation for the Fine Arts and Music, and the Onassis Cultural Centre (Onassis Stegi). In 2022 he began a collaboration with AEA Consulting, a global firm active in strategy and planning for the cultural and creative industries, as a Senior Associate, and founded Carras Consulting – Synergies for Culture, which focuses on sustainability, networks, impact and innovation in the cultural sector. Publications include: an in-depth study of the Greek cultural sector (Dianeosis) and the Handbook of Cultural Work (Bloomsbury Visual Arts).
Andrea Carter is a visual arts producer working in the field of cultural heritage and socially engaged arts for nearly twenty years. Based in the North East of England, Andrea has worked for cultural organisations including Northern Architecture, Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums and Northumberland Museums (now North East Museums) and nationally with Tricolor Associates. She is a Board Member of Dingy Butterflies, a social enterprise developing creative community projects in Gateshead. As Lead Producer at D6, Andrea has led on artistic engagement and research, audiences and ethics for D6’s international programmes, including Contested Desires and ASSEMBLE, which supports the professional development of artists whose practice has been impacted by exile, displacement and migration.
Clymene Christoforou has a long history of cultural development and has led a number of international, multi-partnered programmes. She advocates for putting art and culture at the heart of public debate and decision-making; putting this into practice as trainer for the British Council to develop cultural partnerships between the UK and Ukraine, and as Lead Expert for UCLG’s Pilot Cities and Eleusis 2023, a project that helps cities to develop cultural policies to support sustainable development. She is a Board Member of On the Move, which supports artists and professionals to operate internationally, an active member (former board member) of Culture Action Europe, an inaugural member of Disorderly Women – the European Alliance of Women Leaders in Culture, and more recently as an expert for the Asia Europe Foundation.
Antonis Danos (PhD) teaches and researches in History and Theory of Art at Cyprus University of Technology. His research focuses on the Mediterranean as a ‘hybrid’ and ‘anti-hegemonic’ political and cultural space; publications include: ‘Mediterranean Modernisms: The Case of Cypriot Artist Christoforos Savva,’ in Critically Mediterranean: Temporalities, Aesthetics, and Deployments of a Sea in Crisis (2018); ‘The Mediterranean as Anti-Hegemonic Heterotopia,’ in Maleth/Haven/Port: Heterotopias of Evocation (2019), and ‘De-constructing Hospitality in the Colonial Mediterranean: Lawrence Durrell’s Bitter Lemons and Albert Camus’s L’hôte,’ in Re-Membering Hospitality in the Mediterranean (forthcoming, 2025).
Kelly is a curator and cultural manager whose work focuses on artistic citizenship and the power of art to bring positive change in the society. She has been working for almost 20 years in international projects, capacity building and international networking, originally in the Hellenic Culture Organization – Cultural Olympiad from 2001-2004, and later as founder and director of the independent arts organisation busart. From 2014 to 2020, she was the Artistic Director of Eleusis 2021 (today Eleusis 2023) and from October 2022 the Artistic Director of Larnaka 2030.
Founded in 2015, the Phivos Stavrides Foundation – Larnaca Archives is a research centre for the history and culture of Cyprus, focusing on literature, archaeology and immaterial cultural heritage. Its collection includes more than 50,000 documents, old and rare books and unique publications from or pertaining to Cyprus. The foundation curates specialised museum exhibitions relating to traditional Cypriot crafts and their application today, and holds seminars to promote the learning of traditional crafts, such as Lefkara lace, with emphasis on their development according to contemporary aesthetics and the needs of local society. It also publishes books on history, art and crafts in collaboration with its partners.
Maria Hadjimichael (PhD) is a Senior Associate Scientist at the Cyprus Marine and Maritime Institute, working in the interdisciplinary field of marine and coastal governance. Her work on blue degrowth has become key reading in discussions around the blue economy and the importance of ensuring we understand the limits to growth that exist at sea. Maria has extensive academic and research experience, including a number of interdisciplinary EU research programmes.
Loizos Kapsalis (PhD) specialises in the history of gender and sexuality. He is a social and cultural historian at the Association for Historical Dialogue and Research, where he leads educational programmes about the history of Cyprus for students and educators, working across the divide in Cyprus for capacity building and programme delivery. He works with multi-disciplinary teams at King’s College London, the European University Cyprus and the University of Cyprus, and as a freelance researcher for projects and publications. In 2020 he co-founded the bαhçές histories* of Cyprus, a monthly webinar series which invites scholars, artists and practitioners to share their work with audiences.
Charis Kordatos (MSc) is an Environmental Scientist specialising in renewable energy sources and the implementation of nature-based solutions at the Cyprus Energy Agency. The agency is an independent, non-governmental not-for-profit organisation set up to support local authorities in sustainable energy planning, giving technical support for developing and implementing actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change. It supports the local implementation of Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans under the Covenant of Mayors initiative, which is one of the many areas coordinated by Charis.
Christina Skarpari is a multidisciplinary cultural professional working at the intersection of socially engaged art and design practice, visual communication, curation and creative direction in the framework of social innovation. Her AHRC Techne funded research degree (PhD) at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, is focused on interdisciplinary, collaborative practices and community engagement and combines film, photography and anthropology in craft heritage communities. She is a lecturer at Central Saint Martins on collaborative, intersectional environmentalism. She is vice-president of Phytorio – the biggest visual artists and theorists association dedicated to self-employed art workers in Cyprus and represents 136 members. It forms part of an independent lobbying group representing 44 Cypriot NGOs, lobbying for cultural workers’ rights, aiming to amplify the value of cultural work on a governmental level.
Argyro Toumazou is an experienced cultural producer of socially engaged cultural activities and art practices. She has collaborated closely with artists’ groups, communities and Cypriot NGOs, and has extensive expertise in multi-communal art initiatives. She is a founding board member and cultural advisor to the Gardens of the Future community garden in Nicosia, a European Winner of the New European Bauhaus Prize 2022 – People’s Choice Award, and is co-creator of the New Forest in the Skouriotissa – a reforestation project. Over the last five years she has been lobbying for the interests of the visual arts community in collaboration with visual arts NGOs in Cyprus and in dialogue with the Department of Contemporary Culture of the Cyprus Ministry of Culture.
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