Panel Discussion with Q&A
Culture can be viewed as an aggregate of stories that show a pattern, while featuring a wide range of complexity and movement. Cultural narratives can help contextualize and make sense of our own, individual stories while also shaping our habits and ethics.
As B. Fuller says – To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete – creative practitioners and cultural strategists hold the tools needed to adapt outdated cultural narratives. They can aid sustainable, long-term change by creating new cultural models. Narratives that are thus built around a core of intersectionality and equity and that further both climate and interspecies justice, have the potential to resonate with and empower the people of Planet B.
In this panel discussion, protagonists specializing in AI research, transdisciplinary and critical art, cultural economy, philanthropy and organizational development come together to debate strategic culturing and the tools for building cultural narratives that inspire and inform change.
Chair:
Alexandra Antwi-Boasiako (DE)
Speakers:
Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza (NL)
Bernd Fesel (DE)
Diana Ayton-Shenker (US)
Drew Hemment (GB)
Tega Brain (AU)
Biographies
Alexandra Antwi-Boasiako (DE) is a passionate and curious communicator from Hamburg who builds bridges between artistic visions and audiences. With a degree in Communication and Cultural Management and an MA in Creative and Media Enterprises, she has laid a strong foundation to explore creatively and critically society’s challenges.
Diana Ayton-Shenker (US) is CEO, Leonardo/ISAST, ASU Professor, author of 4 books (including New Global Agenda) and co-creator of large-scale AR public art installations (New Babel, New World City) with William T. Ayton, receiving the 2112 Foundation’s 2020 Visionary Award. As Fast Forward Fund founder, she was honored by Pres. Clinton, named #1 of “25 Leading Women Changing the World” (Good Business NY), and featured among “31 Inspiring Women in Nonprofit Management” (UNC).
Tega Brain (AU) is an Australian-born artist and environmental engineer whose work examines issues of ecology, data systems, and infrastructure. She has created wireless networks that are controlled by natural phenomena, systems for obfuscating personal data, and a smell-based dating service. She is Assistant Professor of Integrated Digital Media at New York University and her first book, “Code as Creative Medium”, is co-authored with Golan Levin and published by MIT Press.
Bernd Fesel (DE) has experience in CCSI for over 30 years and is currently director of the European Creative Business Network (ECBN). Prior to this, he was a serial entrepreneur within the CCSI, held the role of vice director of the European Capital of Culture (Ruhr Region) and was senior advisor to the european centre for creative economy (ecce), Dortmund. Since 1990 Bernd is founder of startups, architect of novel public organisations, inspirator for programs and policies for CCSI as well as influencer and publisher.
Dr Drew Hemment (GB) is an artist, designer and academic researcher. He is Chancellors Fellow at Edinburgh Futures Institute and Edinburgh College of Art at the University of Edinburgh. He leads the Experiential AI research theme, supporting artists and scientists to create accountable and responsible AI, and the GROW Observatory, a continental scale citizens‘ observatory. Drew founded FutureEverything in 1995, and was Artistic Director for 23 years of the UK’s annual festival of digital culture.
Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza (NL): Founder and Chair of Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21), Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza is an advocate for social and environmental justice, philanthropist and patron of the arts, supporting the production and creation of new work that fuels engagement with the most pressing issues of our times. TBA21 stewards the unparalleled TBA21 Collection with more than 200 commissions, and the foundation’s outreach with exhibitions, fellowships, residencies, educational and public programming, and policy interventions. All activity of the foundation is fundamentally driven by artists and the belief in art and culture as a carrier of social and environmental transformation and change. With the initiative #MuseumForUkraine Francesca also united over 100 museum and art professionals to support Ukraine since the onset of the war, taking from the experience she gained from her father and his work in cultural diplomacy in the 1980’s in the Soviet Union.
