The Arts &
Politics , Peacebuilding , Perspectives , Power
Welcome to the interview section, scroll down for interviews
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Professor Helen Storey MBE RDI
is an award winning British artist and designer. She is Professor of Fashion and Science at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, University of the Arts London, London College of Fashion and Co-Director of The Helen Storey Foundation. She launched her label in 1983 with Caroline Coates. In 1991, Storey won Most Innovative Designer Of The Year and was nominated for British Designer Of The Year by The British Fashion Council. In 2009 she was awarded an MBE for ‘Services to Arts’. Through her work she has highlighted issues the world is facing and brought disciplines together to help find solutions to them. Just click on the name or picture on the right and you will be directed to the interview. |
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Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi
is the founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation, and a United Arab Emirates-based columnist whose articles have appeared in The Financial Times, The Independent, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, The New York Times Room for Debate, Foreign Policy, Open Democracy, and The Globe and Mail, as well as other notable publications. TIME magazine listed him in the “140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2011” and he was an MIT Media Lab Director’s Fellow from 2014-2016. In the Spring of 2017 Sultan Al Qassemi was a practitioner in residence at the Hagop Kevorkian Center of Near East Studies at New York University, where he offered a special course on Politics of Middle Eastern Art Sultan continues to write and tweet about the Arab world from his home in Sharjah, and also while giving lectures internationally. Just click on the name or picture on the right and you will be directed to the interview. |
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Myrna Ayad Fair Director of Art Dubai and Shumon Basar Commissioner of the Global Art Forum
ART Dubai is an international art fair that takes place every March in Dubai. For the past decade, the Art Dubai Group has played a key role in the Emirate’s journey towards becoming a leading global destination for arts and design through producing the highly successfully and internationally recognized annual art and design fairs and festivals – Art Dubai, Design Days Dubai, Downtown Design, Art Week and Dubai Design Week. Just click on the name or picture on the right and you will be directed to the interview. |
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Charles Tripp, Professor of politics with reference to the Middle East at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London and a fellow of the British Academy, talks to Art Breath about his latest highly acclaimed Book "The Power and The People: Paths of Resistance in the Middle East (Cambridge University Press)" and on art and politics.
Just click on the name or picture on the right and you will be directed to the interview. |
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Hayle Melim Gadelha,
Cultural Attaché at the Embassy of Brazil, talks to Art Breath on art from Brazil, and the effects of art on society and politics. Just click on the name or picture on the right and you will be directed to the interview. |
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Tom Fletcher CMG British Diplomat, and From 2011 to 2015, he was the UK's Ambassador to Lebanon. He is a visiting Professor of International Relations at New York University and Senior Advisor to the Director General at the Emirates Diplomatic Academy, author of "Naked Diplomacy, Power and Statecraft in the Digital Age" and Global Strategy Director at The Global Business Coalition for Education, talks Soft Power, Art and Culture, Technology, the Future of Power, Brexit, Lebanon and Coexistence Just click on the name or picture on the right and you will be directed to the interview. |
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Fiona Hawthorne
Artist and Illustrator, who's works include the digital portrait of Barack Obama that hangs in the Library of Congress, “Project Ramp” at 300 Ladbroke Grove, and “150 Years of the Market” on Portobello Road, and Producer of “One Thousand Pans” for the closing weekend of the 2012 Olympic Games talks Public Art, Community Work, Notting Hill, Carnival, Art in Schools and the Power of Music and Art Just click on the name or picture on the right and you will be directed to the interview. |
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Michaela Crimmin
Co-director of Culture+Conflict, and works as an independent curator; teaches on the Royal College of Art’s Curating Contemporary Art MA programme; and is associate lecturer at Central Saint Martins School of Art. Michaela Initiated and directed the RSA Arts & Ecology Centre; and the first series of ‘Fourth Plinth’ commissioned artworks, Trafalgar Square, London. Just click on the name or picture on the right and you will be directed to the interview. |
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Michael Landy RA
Artist, graduate of Goldsmiths, co-founded Freeze, one of the original YBA, and Fellow at the Royal Academy. His works include the infamous “Break Down” in 2001, where he landfilled all of his belongings, “Acts of Kindness” a project that highlighted acts of kindness on the London underground, “Art Bin” where Landy invited people to throw their artworks in an act of ‘celebration to creative failure’, “Closing Down Sale” the artist’s reaction to London’s recession in the 1990s and “Saints Alive” kinetic sculptures reflecting paintings from the National Gallery. Just click on the name or picture on the right and you will be directed to the interview. |
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Jennie Cashman Wilson
In 2012, she set up the Abram Wilson Foundation, a registered charity that supports young people to become the greatest version of themselves through music. Jennie lead on a series of successful pilot projects including a sell-out UK jazz tour; 108 hours of schools workshops and 4 jazz installations benefiting 3,000+ secondary school students, and 60 hours of mentoring for 14 mentees. Just click on the name or picture on the right and you will be directed to the interview. |
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Hrair Sarkissian
Photographer, born and raised in Damascus, he earned his foundational training at his father’s photographic studio. He completed a BFA in Photography at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and won the Steenbergen Stipendium and the Abraaj Group Art Prize. His works are displayed in galleries all over the world - from the Tate Modern in London to the Mori Museum of Tokyo. Just click on the name or picture on the right and you will be directed to the interview. |
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Dr Benjamin Dix
In 2012, founded Positive Negatives, that produces comics that explore complex subjects including conflict and migration. He went on to found Why Comics? an educational charity (aimed 7-18-year-olds and their teachers) that communicates humanitarian and social issues. He previously worked as a Communications Manager for the United Nations and various international NGOs across Asia and Africa for over 12 years. Ben is a PRINCE2 Practitioner, and has also recently been awarded a Senior Fellowship from SOAS, as well as being a SOAS Alumni Ambassador. Just click on the name or picture on the right and you will be directed to the interview. |
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James Watt CVO
Former British Ambassador to Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. He was also the Director for Consular Affairs in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. This year he became Chairman of the Council for British Research in the Levant, a charity that sponsors post-doctoral research in the humanities and social sciences in the Levant. Just click on the name or picture on the right and you will be directed to the interview. |
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Yannis Munro
Is a counsellor and psychotherapist and the Mental Health Advisor for the Prince’s Trust, responsible for the implementation of their mental health strategy. He is a qualified and experienced psychotherapist and coach. He trained at WPF Therapy and is a Myers-Briggs practitioner. He has vast experience in the charity sector having worked at The Prince's Trust as a mentor, Befriended for Hestia, a Volunteer Councillor at Mind, and Helper at Marie Curie Cancer Care. Just click on the name or picture on the right and you will be directed to the interview. |
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Hassan Hajjaj,
Is an artist, photographer, designer, interior designer, stylist and fashion designer. His work has been acquired by the Brooklyn Museum, New York, Los Angeles Contemporary Art Museum, CA, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, The British Museum London, The Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, Virginia, USA, The Farjam Collection, Dubai, UAE and at The Barjeel Collection, Sharjah, UAE. Hassan Hajajj has also done many album covers, advertising, television work and interior design, including the Andy Wahloo Bar, Mourad Mazouz’s establishment in Paris, France. He has exhibited worldwide and is the recipient of many prizes. Just click on the name or picture on the right and you will be directed to the interview. |
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Dr. Anthony Brandt
Is a Composer, a recipient of many honours and commissions. He is Professor of Composition and Theory at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, where he has been awarded the University’s Phi Beta Kappa and George R. Brown teaching prizes. He is also the co-founder and Artistic Director of the Houston-based contemporary music ensemble Musiqa and the author of an innovative, web-based music appreciation course called “Sound Reasoning” created for Rice University’s OpenStax. Dr. Anthony Brandt and neuroscientist David Eagleman have co-authored the book "The Runaway Species: How Human Creativity Remakes the World". Just click on the name or picture on the right and you will be directed to the interview. |
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SHOWstudio Fashion Illustration
Emily Knight is an Illustration Agent and Head of Publicity at SHOWstudio Bex Cassie is the Artist Liaison and Gallery Manager at SHOWstudio and is also a working artist. Both Emily and Bex are working on connecting art and fashion, bringing perspectives through illustration and helping artists across the UK to have a platform Just click on the name or picture on the right and you will be directed to the interview. |
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Kate Bailey
Senior Curator and Producer of Theatre and Performance, at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A). Current exhibition: Opera: Passion, Power and Politics Just click on the name or picture on the right and you will be directed to the interview. |
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