Speakers
Zita Holbourne (UK) is a trade unionist, community & human rights campaigner and activist as well as an author, visual artist, curator, poet, vocalist and writer. She is the Co-Founder and National Chair of Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) UK. She is also the National Vice President of the PCS Union and Joint National Chair of Artist's Union England. She works with unions across Europe and internationally to campaign for migrant and refugee rights and against racism and other forms of discrimination. She also campaigns around the links between climate change, migration & refugees & spoke at COP21 in Paris.Her artistic work has been featured at the Tate Modern, V&A, Stratford Picture House, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Goldsmiths Women's Library amongst many other venues both nationally and internationally. Zita won the positive role model for race award at the National Diversity Awards 2012. In December 2019 she received a lifetime achievement award for Equality Champion by the Legacy Gala and Awards. Since 2019, she has been a special adviser to the ENCC on our diversity project. Read more about her in this interview.
Clara Paillard (UK) is a trade unionist, President of the PCS Culture Group that represents 4,000 workers in museums & galleries across the country, including in cultural institutions like Tate, the British Museum, the British Library and the Southbank Centre. She has been the PCS union Branch Secretary in Liverpool Museums since 2008, and sat on the PCS Union National Executive Committee (2015-2018), PCS Women Forum and Disability Forum. She has taken part in numerous campaigns to organise precarious workers and has worked with cultural unions in France, Italy and Greece. She co-curated the Arts4Rights guerilla exhibition with Disabled People Against Cuts at Tate Modern in 2016. She was a founder of the Show Culture Some Love campaign and the Red Green Labour network and is an antiracist, intersectional feminist, disability activist and LGBT ally, as well as a climate activist.
Nebojsa Milikic (Serbia) is a cultural professional and producer living and working in Belgrade. Since 1990 he is engaged in political activism, organizational, artistic and curatorial practice in visual and relational arts, independent research, public debate and critical writing about cultural and political problems of transition societies. He publishes in activist and art portals, participates in collaborative projects, activist research and campaigns at home and abroad. From 1999 onward he has worked at Rex Cultural Center, in Belgrade, as the initiator and coordinator of many programs and projects. He is a member of the initiative No To Rehabilitation dedicated to struggle against historical revisionism and negationism.
Walter Salender (Belgium) is the director of Vaartkapoen cultural centre in Brussels.
Kris De Visscher (Belgium) studied Educational Sciences at the University of Leuven. From 2011 to 2020 he worked for Demos, contributing to research projects, conferences and publications on inclusive arts practice. In 2016, he and his colleague An Van den Bergh published a book on performing arts and disability. As a volunteer for the ENCC, he participated in the CIAE-project as co-author of the Creative Inclusion in Adult Education Toolkit.
Isabel Raabe (Germany) is interested in curatorial and artistic strategies that disrupt Western perspectives and traditions of thought. In her projects she strives to show decolonial perspectives and new narratives, working at the interface of art, politics and humanities. Isabel studied dance (in Berlin and New York) and then cultural management in Berlin. With Franziska Sauerbrey, she founded the independant büro für kulturelle angelegenheiten (office for cultural affairs) in Berlin, in 2007. In 2014, they initiated the project RomArchive – Digital Archive of Sinti and Roma, which was funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation for five years and went online in 2019. RomArchive won the European Cultural Heritage Award in 2019 and the Grimme Online Award 2020. Isabel is currently working on a long-term project entitled "TALKING OBJECTS - Digital Archive for Decolonial Knowledge Production". Find out more about her: www.isabelraabe.de
Nicole Kalitsi was the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator for Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. During her tenure, she coordinated and recruited members for the DEI Affinity Group, organized working groups to successfully tackle issues of diversity within the Philadelphia arts and cultural scene, and developed a toolkit of effective workforce-diversity practices and procedures for use by the Alliance and its members, amongst other things. Nicole also spent eight months working with the Philadelphia Orchestra Association on their Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access Strategies initiative. She currently works for Drexel University.
