Peter
Curman, Sweden
INCD Steering Committee 2001-2002
Author and journalist Peter Curman has been
the Chairman of KLYS, the Swedish Joint Committee for Artistic and Literary
Professionals since1995. After editing the socio-political magazine R from1970-1971, he headed the culture sections of several Stockholm
daily newspapers. As Chairman of the Swedish Author's Union from 1987-1996, he
initiated the creation of The Baltic Writer's and Translator's Centre on the
island of Gotland, and of the International Writers’ and Translators’ Centre of
Rhodes. He is a regular contributor to the Japanese journal The Book and the Computer.
Leonardo Brant - Brazil
INCD Steering Committee 2001-2002
Leonardo Brant is founder and director of the Pensarte Institute, a non-governmental cultural organization, the author of the books “Mercado Cultural (Cultural Market)”, “Políticas Culturais (Cultural Policies)” and “O Papel de Cada Um (The Role of each one of us)” as well as publisher of Cultura e Mercado. Mr Brant also acts as a consultant on cultural policies and investments for private and public institutions.
Julie Ann Delos Reyes - the Philippines
Julie Ann Delos
Reyes is a Research Assistant for Focus on the Global South – Philippine
Programme. She graduated cum laude with
a Bachelor of Arts degree, major in Public Administration from the country’s
premier university, the University of the Philippines. In the summer of 2002, she participated in
the Presidential Summer Program where she worked as part of the Budget Task
Force of the Department of Budget and Management. She is also currently the Teaching Assistant of Dr. Walden Bello
in both Sociology and Public Administration courses at the University of the
Philippines.
Fiona Dove - South
Africa/Netherlands
Executive Director of
the Transnational Institute, an international activist research network
co-ordinated from Amsterdam, since 1995. Prior to this, Fiona was the editor of
the magazine of the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions, previously having
served as an organiser with the South African Commercial, Catering and Allied
Workers' Union. She holds degrees in Industrial Sociology and Development
Studies. Of British parentage, born in Zambia and raised in South Africa, Fiona
was active in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa from 1979,working
mainly with student, feminist and anti-conscription organisations, and from
1985 onwards as a trade unionist.
Nicolette
Du Plessis - South Africa
Nicky du Plessis holds a Masters Degree in Drama and Theatre Studies, and is a freelance consultant in the arts, specializing in project management and evaluation, and arts education. International clients include the Royal Netherlands Embassy, Sida, Norad, the Nordic Council and the KaosPilots University from Denmark, for whom she has provided a range of management/educational services. She has also been responsible for materials development and training in arts management and cultural tourism for various community development projects in South Africa, as well as with the writing of new educational standards in arts and culture management for the National Qualifications Framework. She serves as the National Deputy Chair Person of PANSA (Performing Arts Network of South Africa), and is a Ministerial appointment to the Board of the National Arts Council.
James
C. Early , USA
INCD Steering
Committee 2002-2003
James Early is the Director of Cultural Heritage Policy at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., where he has worked since 1984. He chairs the board of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., and serves as Advisor for Cultural Democracy Policy at the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. He previously worked with the National Endowment for the Humanities, and as a radio producer and researcher at Howard University. The main focus of his professional work is on cultural democracy and development of cultural heritage policy. He has a PhD in Latin American and Caribbean History, with a minor in African and African-American History.
Leah Enkiwe-Abayao - the Philippines
INCD Steering Committee 2002-2003
Leah Enkiwe-Abayao an
Assistant Professor of College of Social Sciences at the University of the
Philippines at Baguio City, as well as a Research Associate of the Tebtebba
Foundation (Indigenous People's International Center for Policy Research and
Education). She has an M.A in Social Development Studies and currently pursuing
Ph.D. in History. She is the author of several publications, particularly on
the Indigenous Knowledge. She is specialised in ethnomedicine, ecological
conservation, and Indigenous peoples' history.
May Fung – Hong Kong
Mei-wah is a Hong Kong
native with a Master of Art in Human Resource Management and a Diploma in
Management Studies. She has gained recognition through a 4-month Fellowship on
video art in USA, a fellowship for Artistic Development and was nominated the
Artist-in-residence for the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her artistic
pursuit includes: the creation of independent short films in 8 mm format
Exhibitions, video art, theatre performance and new media arts exhibition. Her
public service art related work includes: juror for the Hong Kong Independent
Short Film and Video Award, representative of the Ma Tau Kok Cattle Depot
Artist Village for negotiation with the government, adviser to Film & Video
Department of Hong Kong Arts Centre and honorary adviser of the Museum of
Leisure & Cultural Services Department.
Mireille Gagné - Canada
INCD
Steering Committee 2002-2003
After graduating in law from the Université de Montréal, Mireille Gagné went on to gain a Master in Music , specializing in the history of Canadian contemporary music. In 1981 she became the Québec Director of the Canadian Music Centre, a pan-Canadian organization with a mandate to promote the music of Canadian composers nationally and internationally. Mireille Gagné was President of the Canadian Conference of the Arts from 1996-1998 and is today CCA¹s representative on the sectoral commission on culture, communications and information of the Canadian commission for UNESCO. She is one of the founding members of the INCD.
Augustin
Hatar - Tanzania
Dr. Augustin Hatar heads the Department of Fine and Performing Arts at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He holds a PhD in Mass Communication from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, USA. He has been active in participatory research and communication using traditional media, especially community theatre and has over 20 community plays actively being performed in rural Tanzania. Lately he has been trying to give local communities wider perspectives through the creation and use of video play-films, which take community dramatizations of their unique problems and turn them into video films.
Jane
Kelsey - New Zealand
Jane Kelsey is an academic, writer and activist. As Professor of Law at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, her work centres on the impact of structural adjustment and economic globalisation within New Zealand and internationally. She has written numerous books on these issues and travels extensively to present conference papers and public lectures. Since 1990 she has been involved with activist networks of social movements, NGOs, trade unions, indigenous peoples, and the culture sector to oppose multilateral, regional and bilateral free trade agreements, especially the GATS and MAI. She was recently in Cancun during the WTO ministerial meeting.
Dr.
Zeljka Kozul-Wright - UNCTAD
Dr. Kozul-Wright, a Croatian national, is an economist working in UNCTAD's Special Programme for Least Developed Countries, where she is involved in the preparation of the Report on Least Developed Countries. She holds a MA and PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge, England. Before joining UNCTAD she worked at the United Nations Center for Technology in New York and was an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Zagreb, Croatia.
Over the last 5 years, Ms. Kozul-Wright has been working on the economics of cultural industries in developing countries, and in particular the music industry. She has organized a number of projects on the economic potential of these industries in various countries including Cuba, Jamaica, and Senegal. She was the coordinator of the Youth Forum at United Nations Third Conference on Least Developed Countries in Brussels, May, 2001, which examined the export potential of the music industry in LDCs; the proceeding of the Forum will shortly be published. She has published articles in the area of copyrights, music and culture, technology and development as well as transition economies. She is currently co-editing a book on The Creative Industries in Developing Countries- New Sources of Growth.
Ludwig Laher -
Austria
Ludwig Laher, PhD
was born 1955 in Linz, Austria. He was the Vice president of the European
Council of Artists from 2000 – 2003. He is a poet, novelist, essayist. Latest
books: Selbstakt vor der Staffelei. Novel (1998), Wolfgang Amadeus junior:
Mozart Sohn sein. Novel (1999), Herzfleischentartung. Novel (2001),
feuerstunde. Poetry (2003), Aufgeklappt. Novel (2003). He has also written
radio plays, film scripts, translation as well as extensively published texts
on cultural policy in EU contexts and on cultural diversity. He lives near
Salzburg (Austria).
Richard
Letts - Australia
INCD Steering Committee 2002-2003
Richard Letts is the Executive Director of the Music Council of Australia, which he founded in 1994. He founded and directed the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts in San Francisco, and then became Director of the MacPhail Center for the Arts of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He returned to Australia as Director of the music section of the Australia Council, then became Director of the Australian Music Centre. He has been on the Executive of the International Music Council. He is author of two books, and is currently editor of Music Forum magazine. He took his PhD from the University of California in Berkeley.
Katerina
Marinaki - Greece
INCD Steering Committee 2002-2003
Katerina Marinaki studied
Sociology in Sorbonne University with an MA in Mass Media and since 1985, has
worked as scriptwriter for both feature film and television. Ms. Marinaki is
the President of the Federation of Scriptwriters in Europe (2001)and
ex-President of the Scriptwriters' Guild of Greece. Her scripts include The Red
Moon, Betrayed, Taxim, Catherine D.(in pre-production). In 2001, she was
awarded with the best drama script prize for television. She is also a literary
translator.
Jim McKee - Canada
Jim McKee is the director of external relations for the Coalition for Cultural Diversity (Canada), which represents 32 organizations of cultural professionals from books, film and television, live performance, music, visual arts and new media. Prior to joining the Coalition, Jim was for seven years the director of policy and communications with the Writers Guild of Canada, the national association representing English-language screenwriters. A graduate of Carleton University in Ottawa, he began his career as a journalist.
Garry Neil - Canada
INCD Coordinator
Garry Neil has more than 25 years experience in Canada's cultural sector. After a 15-year career with ACTRA, the union representing Canadian performers, writers and broadcast journalists, Mr. Neil formed Neil Craig Associates in 1992 to provide consulting services to firms, associations and others with an interest in cultural policy. Mr. Neil was also Executive Director of the Association of Canadian Publishers and a chief advocate for Canada's book publishers, a position he left in 1995 to work full-time as a consultant. Mr. Neil is a frequent media commentator and is presently Coordinator of the International Network for Cultural Diversity, chair of the Dancer Transition Resource Centre and a member of the Cultural Careers Council of Ontario.
Nina
Obuljen - Republic
of Croatia
INCD Steering Committee 2002-2003, Conference Chair
Nina Obuljen works as a researcher at the Institute for International Relations in Zagreb working on various projects in the field of cultural policy. She is a member of the Culturelink team at the Institute for International Relations which coordinates the Culturelink Network (a network of networks for cooperation in cultural development gathering about 1,000 networks and institutions from all parts of the world). Ms. Obuljen has held the positions of the Chief of Cabinet to the Minister of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, Coordinator for UNESCO at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and worked as a consultant on gender issues for UNESCO in Paris.
Ole Reitov - Denmark
Ole Reitov is
the Director, Arts and Cultural Support, of the Danish Centre for Culture and
Development, and comes from the world of broadcasting. He has served as
correspondent to India and as advisor to Bhutan Broadcasting Service and the
Cultural Co-op Jamana in Mali. In 98 he took initiative to the 1st
World Conference on Music and Censorship and co-edited “Smashed hits” -the book
of banned Music, published by Index on Censorship. Mr. Reitov is a founding
member Freemuse, the World Forum on Music and Censorship. In 2002 he organised
an international conference on cultural diversity in Copenhagen. He has
lectured on cultural policies at various international conferences.
Burama Sagnia - Senegal
Mr. Sagnia is the founding coordinator of the African Itinerant College for Culture and Development, a UNESCO supported initiative. He is also a UNESCO consultant on culture and development, and was the Founding Executive Director of the National Council for Arts and Culture of The Gambia. Currently, he also serves as the Chairman/Consultant of the Cultural Impact Assessment Committee, an ad-hoc Working-Group set up by the INCD to develop international principles and guidelines on cultural impact assessment.
Arshia Sattar - India
Arshia Sattar holds a
Ph.D. in South Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of
Chicago. She has translated various Sanskrit texts to English for Penguin
Books, and was co-scriptwriter for the documentary film Kings Lovers and
Thieves (produced by REM Pictures). She also conceived, wrote and directed
Burning Bridges (a short film on the 1993 communal riots in Bombay). She has
also worked extensively in theatre with older students. Most recently, Sattar
has been teaching Indian Studies and Cultural Studies. She currently works as a
free lance writer and researcher.
Rafael Segovia - Mexico
INCD
Steering Committee 2002-2003
Rafael
Segovia is a cultural agent who has been involved with music, photography,
theatre and video. Mr. Segovia was the director of Casa del Lago, a cultural
centre of the National University, and later a cultural attaché at the Mexican
Consulate in Montreal, Canada. He went on to found ARTUAL, the first
international artists’ touring agency in Mexico. A cultural activist, he is at
present the General Coordinator of the Citizen’s Council for Culture and the
Arts. He is a professor and a translator and holds two Masters of Arts degrees
in Literature, from France and Mexico.
Jean
Tardif - Canada
Mr. Tardif holds a degree in anthropology from the Université de Montréal. He has taught anthropology at the École nationale de droit et d'administration, and at the Universities of Zaïre and Montréal. He held a number of position in the Quebec government, notably Delegate for Francophone and Multi-lateral Affairs, General Delegate for Quebec in Brussels and Director General of Policy. He was also the Head of Cabinet for the General Secretary, la Francophonie. For the past two years, he has lead the Association internationale Planetagora, an umbrella group of cultural actors. Planetagora provides a forum for public debate around international public policy, such as cultural diversity. He has also published articles in a number of journals and revues.
Yvon Thiec - Belgium/France
INCD Steering Committee 2002-2003
M. Yvon Thiec, representative of Eurocinéma, holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Institut universitaire européen. Eurocinéma, Association de Producteurs, was created in Brussels in July 1999 on the recommendation of a group of professional associations of French film producers with the mandate to promote a true European policy in the cinematographic and audiovisual fields.
Aleksandra Uzelac - Croatia
Aleksandra Uzelac completed her university studies at the University of Zagreb (1993 - B.A. ethnology and information science, 1998 M.A. information science, 2003 Ph.D. information science). Since 1993 she has been working as a researcher at the Culture and Communication Department of the Institute for International Relations in Zagreb where she is engaged in research of organisation of knowledge in cultural field (organisation of knowledge in museums, cultural databases, impact of ICT on cultural field, virtual networks...) and cultural policy and cultural management issues. She has participated at numerous conferences and published articles on topics related to her research interest. She is a member of the Culturelink review editorial board. In 2000 at the request of the Croatian Ministry of Culture and Open Society Institute Croatia, she prepared the concept for the first cultural portal in Croatia (CultureNet Croatia www.culturenet.hr). She was the initial coordinator of the project and now a member of the coordination group that steers its development.
Michael Van Graan - South Africa
INCD Regional
Coordinator/Africa
Michael van Graan is a co-founder and General Secretary of the Performing Arts Network of South Africa. He served as the Special Adviser on Arts and Culture to the first non-racial government in South Africa as well as in leadership capacities in various cultural non-government organizations including Director of the Community Arts Project in Cape Town, National Projects Officer for the Congress of South African Writers in Johannesburg, Director of the Bartel Arts Trust (BAT) Centre in Durban and General Secretary of the National Arts Coalition. Mr. Van Graan acts as an arts and culture consultant through his company, Article 27, in addition to being an award-winning playwright.
Lidia Varbanova– Bulgaria
Dr. Lidia Varbanova is an international consultant and lecturer on cultural policy and management, living in Montreal, Canada. During the last three years she has served as the Program Director of the Arts and Culture Network of the Open Society Institute (the Soros foundations headquarter in Hungary). Before joining OSI, she has been working as: Professor and Head of Department of Social and Cultural Management and Economics, University of National and World Economy, Sofia; Tutor and consultant in management and marketing with the Open University, London; Visiting Lecturer at ICCM, Zalzburg, City University, London, ECUMest MA program in Cultural Management, Dartington College, UK, Yuvaskula University, Finland, University of Arts, Belgrade and many other European universities; Director of and founder of Arts Management program, New Bulgarian University; Consultant and advisor with the Ministry of Culture, Institute of Industrial Relations and Management, Union of Bulgarian Foundations, Civil Society Development Foundation and the Democracy Network. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics, MA in Industrial Management and Minor in Journalism.
Antun
Vujić - Minister of culture of the Republic of Croatia
Dr. Antun
Vujić graduated philosophy and holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the
Faculty of Arts and Letters of the University of Zagreb. He was the editor of Studentski
list, the student newspaper and in 1967 launched and headed Omladinski
tjednik (Youth Weekly), a paper created in the spirit of the “underground”
youth culture of the time. In 1969 he became the director of the Youth Cultural
Activity Centre. In 1971, he was politically affiliated with the democratic
movement of the so-called Croatian Spring. After the purge in 1972, he was
dismissed from all jobs.
After a pause of many years, in the middle of the 1980s his works began
to appear under his name in professional journals, mostly dealing with philosophical-scientific
themes; he is the author of a number of lexicographical and socio-political
studies. At the end of the 1980s, he
became involved in the democratic changes in Croatia as one of the initiators
of the Croatian Human Rights Committee (1989) and the founder of the
first Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDH).
Since 1995 he
has been a parliamentary deputy, a member of the Croatian parliamentary
delegation to the Council of Europe (1996) and the Inter-parliamentary Union
(1997); he was the vice-chair of the parliamentary Committee on Education,
Culture and Science. After the elections held in January 2000, he became
minister of culture of the Republic of Croatia.
Megan Willliams - Canada
Megan has worked all her life in the arts - first apprenticing as a weaver in the Danish tradition, then teaching and practising as an artist, and only moving into administration when she took on the management of a weavers’ co-operative in Pangnirtung, Baffin Island. Her move from directing a crafts organization in Newfoundland to Ottawa to work at Canada Council gave her a taste for working at a national level and a chance to acquaint herself with the astonishing breadth of contemporary arts practice in this country. Megan’s latest move, from Halifax to Ottawa, entailed leaving a cultural policy position with the federal government to work for the CCA, an arts service organization with a national membership and a strong advocacy role. This opportunity to work for a high-profile and knowledgeable board on issues of importance to the whole cultural sector holds tremendous appeal for her.
Ken
Wiwa - Canada/Nigeria
Ken Wiwa is an author, journalist, broadcaster and social entrepreneur. A weekly columnist for the Toronto Globe and Mail, he writes on cultural and political issues. He worked for The Guardian in the UK for two years and has also written for other UK publications including The Observer, The Independent, Independent on Sunday, The Times, Sunday Times and the Sunday Telegraph. Internationally his journalism has appeared in South Africa (The Mail and Guardian, The Sunday Times, Sunday Independent), in Holland, Germany, Ireland and Spain (El Mundo).
As a broadcaster, Ken Wiwa has presented programmes for the BBC and on documentaries for Channel 4, CBC and BBC Radio 4. He also writes commentaries for National Public Radio. His first book, In the Shadow of a Saint, was published to critical acclaim around the world and won the 2002 Hurston-Wright Foundation Non-fiction award. He is currently working on his first novel.
Ken Wiwa divides his time between Canada and Nigeria where he is the managing director of Saros International a property and media enterprise he is restructuring to accommodate and build virtual networks to provide infrastructure capacity for agricultural, health, cultural and educational initiatives. Ken Wiwa is a Saul Rae Fellow at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto, he is also is a senior resident of Massey College.
Yashin, Neshe - Cyprus
Neshe Yashin is a poet
and writer read on both sides of divided Cyprus. She has published four volumes
of poetry and a novel. She actively took part in several bicommunal groups of
Cyprus working for the reunification of the island. She received several awards
for her work including the Artist of the Year Award (1992) given by Turkish
Bank in the Northern part of Cyprus and the prestigious Anthias Pierides
Award(1998) in the Southern part. In 1997 she decided to live at the Southern
part of the island as a protest to the division. She is currently living there
and teaching Turkish language and literature at University of Cyprus- Turkish
Studies Department.