Through various keynote sessions and interactive discussion formats, our speakers will guide us in exploring how the arts can generate dialogue, raise awareness of issues, and drive change in the way we see the world. Specifically…
- How far are political leaders allowed to go to use art as a political tool?
- How far are the arts in their many forms allowed to go to provoke / generate dialogue / change perceptions?
- How does art open new horizons for people? How can it connect people / help cope with disruption?
- How does art survive? How is it supported? How is it made accessible? How does technology enhance or limit what we see?
- Where do we go from here?
Caron Gentry (MHC ’99) – Professor at the Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sciences Senior Sponsor for Gender Equality, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Caron will focus on how can we better articulate the fundamental necessity of the arts to our society, how the arts allow us to explore our humanity and connection to others, how they help us understand vulnerability and compassion, and are socially generative.
Anton Biebl – Head of Cultural Affairs for the City of Munich
Anton leads the promotion of art and culture and the management of municipal cultural enterprises; he is focused on ways and means to support the artist community, including the program “Kultur aus der Krise” coming out of the pandemic.
Ajay Sinha – MHC Professor, scholar and critic of the arts of India
Ajay’s courses deal with questions of diversity and interconnections across cultures that have historically shaped the worlds in which art is produced. He focuses on visual observation and analysis to show how works of art reflect political and social formations, embody cultural values, and make visible the historical relations between local cultures in Asia and global networks, between religious beliefs and secular life, in both the present and the past.
Marjory Wentworth (MHC ’80) – Professor at The College of Charleston, South Carolina
Majory teaches on writing, social justice, and banned books. She is a New York Times bestselling author of Out of Wonder, Poems Celebrating Poets, nominated for The Pushcart Prize. She focuses on ways to integrate human rights and social practices into the arts. She is an advisor at The Global Social Justice Practice Academy and the National Coalition Against Censorship Free Speech.
Sofia Contini – London Tate Gallery consultancy portfolio manager
Sofia works with a wide range of organisations around the world to devise collaborative projects, from ground-up museum strategy to children’s art prizes and large-scale digital installations for exhibitions. She is a Smith College graduate ’14 with a Masters in Film from Oxford.
Nata Togliatti – Independent artist, Munich
Nata is a young and innovative artist focused on the boundaries between art and commerce, reality and criticism of consumerism. She is a painter, sculptor and curator, including exhibitions in a supermarket during the pandemic. She is inspired by the world of goods and consumption which shapes our society every day, creating longings and temptations, producing ideals, being shaped by the changing times and impacting our everyday lives and needs.
Leslie Van Stavern Millar (MHC ‘72) – Independent visual artist, Montana, USA
Leslie incorporates a scientific, investigative approach to art creation, using a variety of mediums (painting, performance art, photography and printmaking) as a platform for addressing social, cultural and environmental issues. In 2017 Leslie organized and participated in We The People, a group art exhibit addressing freedom of expression and constitutional rights, with an updated version of We The People planned in advance of the US elections in November 2024. Leslie is the recipient of grants from the Montana Arts Council, PROP Foundation, and most recently a Shea/ Silverman Fellowship to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
Erin McGee Ferrell (’94) – Visual artist, University of New England, Maine, USA
Erin is an internationally celebrated visual artist renowned for her innovative fusion of classical oil painting techniques with cutting-edge technology. She teaches at the University of New England in Maine and exhibits her work around the world, including in Bahrain Annual Spring of Culture and recently spoke in Saudi Arabia, representing the US State Department on the integration of Artificial Intelligence and art in non-artistic domains.
More speakers will be joining this prestigious list, watch this space!