Asma Abidi is a young journalist and activist from Tunisia, who also works in media development. In 2011, she got involved as a citizen journalist during the Tunisian Uprising. She was a Cross Culture Plus intern, working as social media & TV producer at BBC MEDIA ACTION, where she was responsible for helping the Tunisian National Broadcasters' journalists develop a youth program and where she also gave trainings to the Communication department on how to use social media to target audiences and promote TV programs. She is now back in Tunisia, working on a new mission at the Tunisian Red Crescent as communication officer. She also continues to freelance as media consultant, correspondent and social media expert.
Irena Borovina, President of the Association Vestigium, a neighbourhood community centre without government support. She leads eco-creative workshops, organizes community supported agriculture - green baskets delivery and a farmers market, stimulating cooking workshops and day trips to farms for introducing and connecting citizens and farmers.
Started projects such as school garden, free library, transition startups for other neighbourhoods and towns. In 2016, coordinated Platforms Zelenica The Vestigium Association, through the collaborative Zelenica Green Cooperation Platform, funded by the National Foundation for Civil Society Development, which promotes civic activism and ecological producers through civic action in 5 neighbourhoods of Zagreb. In 2017 was elected to the Transition HUB to represent Croatia. The term REconomy / Transition Network was launched under the Transition Network, which sets out to stimulate the transition to post-fossil society, and involves necessary social change as well as the active contribution of local communities.
Mag.a Andrea Folie, University of Salzburg and Universidade federal do Rio de Janeiro. Sciences of communication - focus on audiovisual and linguistics. CEO/Founder/Owner of Ikult. Intercultural projects and concepts. Leader “Arriving tour QUERBEET”. Staff of the umbrella organisation for cultural institutions in Salzburg (Dachverband Salzburger Kulturstätten) Years of experience in intercultural art mediation for schools and kindergartens, as well as creating EU projects and networking models. Freelance writer.
Dr. Daniel Gad, Managing director of the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policy for the Arts in Development at University of Hildesheim since 2012. Starting from 2017 he is head of the Arts Rights Justice Program which beside other activities organizes the annual Arts Rights Justice Academy at Hildesheim Kulturcampus. Since 2017 he represents the University of Hildesheim at the Steering Committee of Hildesheim's candidacy to become European Cultural Capital 2025. In 2014 he was head of management of the VIII International Conference on Cultural Policy Research (ICCPR2014). Since 2014 he is member of The International Journal of Cultural Policy’s list of reviewers. He is a former member of the Cultural Policy Task Group of the Panafrican Arterial Network. Since 2014 he is member of the U40 Network "Cultural Diversity 2030" (coordinated by IFCCD and the German Commission for UNESCO). In 2013 he finalized his PhD entitled “The Art of Development Cooperation. Concepts and Programs of a Foreign Cultural Policy of the Nordic Countries” with summa cum laude. From 2006 to 2011 he was busy with various projects, commissioned studies and conference management as a freelancer for the German Development Service (DED), the German Commission for UNESCO, the Church Development Service (EED), Goethe- Institute, Heinrich-Boell-Foundation, Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa), Institute for Church and Society, Pan y Arte and others. Since 2003 he is a freelance musician.
Marilyn Gaughan Reddan is a Cultural Programmer and Curator with over 20 years experience in designing and delivering Cultural Projects in rural areas. Marilyn was the County Arts Officer with Galway County Council where she established large scale programmes in Film, Arts & Education, Arts & Health, Festivals Development and Artist Support Programmes. She currently works at Galway 2020, European Capital of Culture on the development of the Cultural Programme.
Doreen Götzky studied cultural sciences & aesthetic practice at the University of Hildesheim with a focus on fine arts, cultural management, cultural policy and business administration, and is now working for Kulturbüro of Landkreis Hildesheim, where she is responsible for the implementation of cultural development planning.
Dagna Gmitrowicz works as a facilitator and process designer who creates meaningful learning spaces at conferences, workshops and retreats for teams, organizations and institutions. She believes in and supports a collaborative work culture – one that uses the potential and strengths of everyone and taps into the collective wisdom of the group. She is inspired by Holacracy, The Way of Council, Art of Hosting, Resonant Leadership. She is a trainer of soft skills, artist and art- therapist. Recently worked with, among others: Erasmus + National Agencies, Euroguidance, Bundesvereinigung Kulturelle Kinder- und Jugendbildung (BKJ). She also manages her own cultural foundation in Poland.
Beate Kegler studied Cultural Sciences at the University of Lüneburg and the Polytechnic of East London. For over 20 years she directed socio-cultural organisations in rural and remote areas. Since this time she combined practice-based daily work to academic research on participatory cultural work for regional development. Since 2011 she continued research as PhD student at the Department of Cultural Policy, University of Hildesheim (Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schneider) and was involved in several projects connected to the research topic. Since 2016 she teaches and researches as an academic associate and deputy professor at the University of Hildesheim. In the last years she published a range of relevant studies and articles and is a well-reputed expert member of the socio-cultural advisory boards of the Ministry of Science in Culture Lower Saxony, the Landesverband Soziokultur, Lower Saxony and the Foundation Lower Saxony. She lives with her family in a village on the German North Sea coast.
Daniela Koß, cultural scientist M.A., has been active at the Stiftung Niedersachsen (Foundation of Lower Saxony) since 2010 and is responsible for the funding area “theatre and social culture”. Through her work she advises numerous actors, and conceptualises and guides innovative funding programmes and professional development events for social culture and independent theatre. In addition to various lectures and articles, the Handbuch Soziokultur (Handbook of Social Culture) was published in 2015 under her leadership.
Stefan Könnecke, founder and Kulturfabrik Löseke project Manager since 1990. Academic studies in cultural education.
Lone Leth Larsen, Studied art history at Vrije University of Amsterdam and University of Copenhagen. Worked at Museum of Modern Art, Louisiana; director of Danish Cultural Institute Brussels; founder of International Cultural Network of Cultural Institutes EUNIC ; Head of Culture for the Municipality of Kolding. International cultural advisor at the central Denmark EU office for Aarhus 2017. Worked on role of people, cultural centres and libraries for villages and rural areas in think tanks, books, conferences and now ECoC Aarhus 2017.
Meike Lettau holds an M.A. in Arts and Cultural Mediation from the Department of Cultural Policy at Hildesheim. Her fields of interest are international cultural relations and German foreign cultural policy in times of transition. Currently, she is working as an academic associate at the UNESCO-Chair ‘Cultural Policy for the Arts in Development’ at Hildesheim University and coordinating the Graduate School ‘Performing Sustainability. Cultures and Development in West-Africa’ with partner universities in Nigeria and Ghana. Her PhD research focuses on the role of arts and culture in transforming countries like Tunisia. She is a member of Cultural Innovators Network (CIN), a Euro-Mediterranean network initiated by Goethe-Institut, which advocates social and cultural change through cross-cultural dialogues within the MENA region.
In the past she has worked with international cultural institutions, e.g. Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa), Goethe-Institut Pune, KHOJ International Artists‘ Association and ARThinkSouthAsia.
Alex Meszmer is a visual artist, curator and a member of the National Committee of VISARTE – Association of Professional Artists, Switzerland. Meszmer works closely with IGBK Berlin as an expert for the European Commission for questions regarding artists’ mobility. He is Head of Fine Arts and Lecturer at the Art and Design School, St. Gallen. Together with his partner Reto Mueller, he is organising a digital archive about the Swiss village Pfyn, running the Transitory Museum, an ever-changing museum and searching for the beauty of democracy with their club ‘desirer’.
Piotr Michalowski, Master of Arts in Cultural Studies (University of Wrocław), MSc in Management and Entrepreneurship in Culture (Postgraduate studies at the Lower Silesian College of Public Services), and professional musician, graduate of Wrocław’s School of Jazz (jazz guitar). Certified moderator of Polish-American Freedom Foundation and strategy development planning consultant of Polish National Centre for Culture in Warsaw. An experienced cultural manager, researcher and animator, active in the cultural field for over 15 years, working for the public sector, the non-governmental sector, cultural networks and universities for many years. He has completed over 100 cultural and artistic projects, as well coordinating regional projects of European Capital of Culture Wrocław 2016. Co-initiator of Wandering Cultural Forum Lower Silesia, a developing regional network of cultural organizations. Currently head of the Culture House in the Community Culture Centre of Oleśnica and board member of the European Network of Cultural Centres, based in Brussels. As well as owner of the company Micro Art Centre Piotr Michałowski, active in the cultural and creative sector, supporting national and international event organization and management, providing cultural and strategic counselling for institutions and companies, and supporting cultural activities in the fields of music, theatre, film, and photography.
Lucija Mikas is a contemporary dancer (graduate of the Academy Balance1, Berlin), dance teacher and yoga teacher (European Yoga Federation). She grew up and trained in Germany, and now lives in Sv. Filip i Jakov on the Dalmatian coast in Croatia. She works as a freelancer in Zadar in the field of dance, as a teacher at the State Elementary and Middle School of Music and Contemporary Dance, and as Chairperson and Project Director of the In Flux Dance Association.
Ursula Pehlke is a freelance director and a dance-theatre-creator with professional and socio-cultural projects. Co-initiator of the cultural train station Hitzacker KuBa e.V. and campaigner of Zuflucht Wendland "for an open society" and the inclusion of 10.000 refugees; the campaign was nominated for the Hamburg Cultural Communication Prize in 2015. In collaboration with the new "international guests", she developed performative readings of escape stories, youth theatre productions, a video project with underage refugees and a multimedia theatre with the free stage Wendland "City under the Sea" (nominated by the Socio-cultural Innovation Prize) , which shows a lot of political work - the people of Wendland are used to it. She lives with her family in Hitzacker / Elbe.
Katrin Reiter MA, EO, founder and owner of Ikult. Works on intercultural projects and concepts as well as own projects. Coordinator of the educational guidance network in Salzburg. Years of experience in conceiving and shaping participatory processes and intercultural performance art, as well as creating EU projects and networking strategies.
Professor Dr. Wolfgang Schneider, Director of the Department of Cultural Policy at the University of Hildesheim, UNESCO-Chair in Cultural Policy for the Arts in Development, Member of the International Theatre Institute and the German UNESCO Commission, Chair of ASSITEJ Deutschland and Honorary President of the International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People. He was Founding Director of the National Centre for Children’s and Young People’s Theatre in Germany, Chair of the Theatre Council of the State Lower Saxony, Member of the Advisory Board for Dance and Theatre of the Goethe-Institut and Expert Member of the « Culture in Germany » Commission of the German Parliament. Examiner for arts education, socio-cultural centres and theatre. Research Projects and publications about cultural policy, cultural diplomacy, arts education, cultural diversity and theatre arts; editor of books and magazines on Cultural Studies.
Dunja Vuković, cultural project manager, ethnologist and general linguist. She is involved in the development of socio-cultural and educational projects in the field of sustainable development and cultural heritage, and co-production projects with the local community. She is oriented towards experiential learning and practices in the context of heritage and artistic projects. Working experience: museum pedagogue in Ethnographic museum in Zagreb, coordinator of centres for technical culture for children (Zagreb Association of Technical Culture), cultural project manager in Dubrava Peoples’ University, Zagreb. Since 2010, she is included in the implementation of projects financed by the EU Lifelong Learning Programme and Erasmus +, and she has a rich experience in cooperation with different European socio-cultural centres. Presently, she is self-employed as a cultural entrepreneur and one of the initiators of the international project Origin of Spaces – innovative practices for sustainable multidisciplinary clusters, and member of intellectual cooperative of co-creators Grain of salt from Zagreb.
Prof. Dr. Vanessa Isabelle Reinwand-Weiss, studied pedagogy, theatre- and media-sciences, Italian romance studies and philosophy in Erlangen and Bologna. She received her PhD in 2007 with a thesis on education and learning processes in theatre play at the University of Erlangen-Nüremberg. She then led postdoctoral studies on young childhood education at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland).
She was appointed junior professor of arts education at the Institute of Culture Policy of the University of Hildesheim in 2009. She has been director of the Federal Academy for Cultural Education Wolfenbüttel since 2012. And she continues to teach as professor for arts and cultural education at the University of Hildesheim.
Vanessa Isabelle Reinwand-Weiss is active in numerous committees and juries in the field of cultural education, for example as a founding member of the nationwide Network for Research on Cultural Education (Netzwerk Forschung Kulturelle Bildung) and member of the Council for Cultural Education (Rat für Kulturelle Bildung).
Christine Wingert is research associate at the Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft and head of the national contact point for the Europe for Citizens’ programme of the EU. After studying cultural sciences and science of art as well as French in Bremen and Tübingen, she worked at the culture consultancy Dr. Voesgen in Oldenburg. From 1995 to 2000 she organized cultural events and contemporary art exhibitions, and founded the youth art college PAULA in her capacity as cultural officer in the village of Worpswede. After some years as a freelancer with her cultural consultancy ConArte, Bremen, she became in 2004 employee of the Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft e.V. She developed the internet site www.europa-foerdert-kultur.info, worked as information officer at the Cultural Contact Point, and has been in charge of several research projects. She has published on the topics of European cultural promotion as well as the regional networking of cultural work.
Sabine Zimmermann was born in Goerlitz (GDR), studied in Hildesheim, has a degree in Interior Architecture and Metal Design. She has been working as a freelancer for 14 years. She is on the board of Netzwerk Kultur & Heimat Hildesheimer Land e.V. since 2009 and is CEO of the organisation since 2017. She has been project manager of different socio-cultural projects in the rural area of Hildesheim since 2009. She lives in a small village of 300 inhabitants and is member of a local organisation to vitalize the village through culture.
