BIOS
DOROTHY ALLEN-PICKARD Dorothy is a filmmaker and multidisciplinary theatre-maker from South-East London. In 2019, she received the BFI New Talent Award and was named as one of Broadcast’s Hotshots. Her practice is grounded in a deep interest in other people and a will to bring about social and political change. It merges documentary, fictional and theatrical techniques and form, and she is a member of the award-winning theatre company Breach. Dorothy's films have been awarded with Best UK Short at Open City Doc Fest, shortlisted for Grierson Short Award and received multiple Vimeo Staff Picks. They have screened at festivals including Clermont Ferrand, Sheffield Doc Fest, Oberhausen, Doc NYC, Edinburgh International Film Festival, as well as on BBC3, Channel 4, Nowness, i-D and The Guardian. She is currently developing her debut feature Weekend Dad, about a father who finds an escape in joyous weekends spent with his daughter.
GABRIEL B. ARRAHNIO Gabriel B. Arrahnio moved from Cameroon to Germany just before his 14th birthday. In 2012 he relocated to Berlin, and in 2015 was hired by agency Jung von Matt as their first in-house director. He shot his short film Shame – which won a Silver at the Young Director Awards in 2017 – on a shoestring budget over a weekend, and decided to leave Jung von Matt to freelance and study at film school. He now balances his education with ongoing work together with Snapper Films.
MEGAN BARKER
Megan Barker lives in South Wales. She has a background in theatre, and her plays have been produced at theatres such as Soho Theatre, Sherman Cymru, The Arches, The Traverse and The Tron. She also writes song lyrics, most recently for Quiet River of Dust by Richard Reed Parry. KIT is her first novel.
NEIL BARTLETT
Neil Bartlett has been making rule-breaking theatre and performance since 1983. After a controversial early career, he was appointed Artistic Director of the Lyric Hammersmith in London in 1994. Since leaving the Lyric in 2005, major cultural producers he has worked for include the National, the Abbey in Dublin, the Bristol Old Vic, the Manchester Royal Exchange, the Edinburgh International, Manchester International, Brighton, Aldeburgh and Holland Festivals, the Wellcome Foundation and Tate Britain. Neil is also an acclaimed author, with a whole shelf of novels, plays, adaptations and translations to his name.
Photograph by Camilla Broadbent
GRETA BELLAMACINA
Greta Bellamacina is a poet, actress and filmmaker. In 2016 she made the documentary THE SAFE HOUSE: A DECLINE OF IDEAS, a love letter to public libraries and a protest against their closure. Her first poetry collection KALEIDOSCOPE was short-listed for Young Poet Laureate of London in 2014. She has since published two poetry collections with New River Press, PERISHING TAME and COLLECTED POEMS 2015-2017, and edited SMEAR, an anthology of contemporary feminist poetry. TOMORROW'S WOMAN was published internationally this year.
JAMES BIRCH
James Birch has been a promoter of modern art exhibitions both in the UK and overseas for over thirty years. He opened his first gallery, James Birch Art, in 1983, which specialised particularly in showing the work of Surrealists and Young British Artists. His second gallery, Birch & Conran Fine Art, opened in 1987 in London’s Soho, and a decade later he opened the A22 Gallery, in Clerkenwell, London. James has exhibited artists including Grayson Perry, Francis Bacon, Gilbert & George, Genesis P Orridge and Austin Osman Spare and Denis Wirth-Miller in galleries all over the world.
Photograph of James in the Kremlin, 1986
HOLLY BLAKEY
Born in North Yorkshire and now based in London, Blakey’s dance work spans stage and screen. Her award-winning debut live show SOME GREATER CLASS was performed at the Southbank in summer 2017. Blakey’s work for camera, as director and choreographer, has featured collaborations with music artists and fashion houses such as Dior, Gucci, Claire Barrow, Young Fathers, Gwilym Gold, Mica Levi and Florence and the Machine. Blakey is the recipient of a UK MVW award for her choreographic work.
Photograph by Craig Bernard
JACQUI DAVIES
Jacqui Davies is a London-based Producer & Curator of over 80 films and installations for broadcast, gallery exhibition, site-specific and cinema. Jacqui Davies is sole producer through Primitive Film of multi-award-winning RAY & LIZ, by Richard Billingham, 2018. RAY & LIZ premiered at Locarno and official selection in over 70 festivals and is the winner of 15 prestigious film awards. Jacqui Davies individual awards include: Jacqui Davies/Primitive Film received BFI Vision Award 2016-18. Jacqui Davies was awarded BIFA Breakthrough Producer 2018 (RAY & LIZ) and Bafta Nominated Producer 2019 (RAY & LIZ). Jacqui Davies is a recipient of ACE Producers, 2020 (ACE30)
MATT DAVIES
Matt Davies studied at the prestigious Central Saint Martins school of Art and Design, and since graduating he has worked extensively across the Film and TV Industry. With over ten years of experience he has worked in a variety of different roles and has honed his craft and developed his story telling. He has a passion for telling powerful and emotive stories which reflect the struggles of the human experience in the fast changing modern world.
JEREMY DELLER
Jeremy Deller studied Art History at the Courtauld Institute and at Sussex University. Deller won the Turner Prize in 2004 for his work ‘Memory Bucket’ and represented Britain in the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. He has been producing projects over the past two decades which have influenced the conventional map of contemporary art. He began making artworks in the early 1990s, often showing them outside conventional galleries. He lives and works in London.
Photograph by Tasha Amini
JOE FLETCHER
Joe Fletcher is a filmmaker and DJ who has produced and directed a range of projects around the world, for institutions including the BBC, The Guardian, The ICA, The Atlantic and Glastonbury Festival. His feature documentary AMERICAN B-SIDE won best cinematography at the Chicago Film Festival in 2015. He has produced a number of radio series, podcasts and short documentaries exploring forgotten or little-known cultures, stories and moments in music from around the world.
Photograph by Tasha Amini
EMMA GLASS
Emma Glass was born in Wales in 1987 and is now based in London, where she writes and works as a children’s nurse. Her debut novel Peach was published by Bloomsbury in 2018, has been translated into seven languages and was long-listed for the International Dylan Thomas Prize. Her second novel Rest and Be Thankful was published by Bloomsbury in 2020. Mrs Jekyll, a sensitively told retelling of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic, will be published by CHEERIO in 2024.
MIRANDA GOLD
Miranda Gold is a writer based in London. Her first novel, Starlings, was published by Karnac in December 2016. A Small Dark Quiet (Unbound) is her second novel. Miranda is currently a creative writing tutor for Skylight, Crisis. She is working with Crisis and New River Press on an anthology for people who have experienced homelessness.
RICHARD E. GRANT
Richard E. Grant is an award-winning actor who made his film debut as Withnail in the comedy Withnail and I (1987). Following this, he started appearing in Hollywood films and received critical acclaim for his role as Jack Hock in Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018), winning the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male as well as receiving Academy Award, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor.
Photograph by Johnnie Shand Kydd
MICHAEL HODGES
Michael Hodges has reported extensively from Russia and the Middle East. He has written for many newspapers and magazines including The Sunday Times, the Financial Times, Time Out, New Statesman and Esquire. He is the author of AK47: THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE’S GUN. He is currently editor-at-large of the Radio Times and he lives in London with his family.
MICHAEL HOROVITZ
Michael Horovitz OBE was a British poet, artist, editor and translator. During his time at Oxford from 1954 to ’59, he founded pioneering literary periodical NEW DEPARTURES. In June 1965 he co-produced the first International Poetry Incarnation at the Royal Albert Hall. Appearing alongside Allen Ginsberg and Alexander Trocchi, the event attracted the then largest known audience for poetry in Europe. In 1971 Horovitz published THE WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERER, AN EPIC OF BRITANNIA, IN TWELVE BOOKS, WITH A RESURRECTION & A LIFE FOR POETRY UNITED, a collection of British artists of the period that included David Hockney, Bob Godfrey, Jeff Nuttall and Horovitz among others. Horivitz passed away in July 2021.
Photograph by Jon Newey
JOSEPH INGHAM
Joe Ingham hails from Blackpool and has produced television series and specials for broadcasters including the BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5, and Sky. His most recent television credit is Macaulay Culkin's Midlife Crisis which he originated and developed. In addition to television, Joe has produced films including Invisible Women (2018) and directed Baby Lies Truthfully (2020) that featured Russell Tovey and was selected for festivals including BFI Flare. His first book, Out and About with Linden: A Queer Archive of the North was published in 2022.
EDIE LAWRENCE
Edie Lawrence is a stop motion animator based in London, specialising in claymation. She comes from a background of illustration, mostly focusing on portraiture. She went into animation because she has a passion for storytelling, music, sculpture and film, and she feels animation allows you to morph all of these things together.
NIALL McDEVITT
Niall McDevitt (1967-2022) was the author of three collections of poetry, b/w (Waterloo Press, 2010), Porterloo (International Times, 2013) and Firing Slits, Jerusalem Colportage (New River Press, 2016). His essays have appeared in The London Magazine, International Times, History Today. He is also known for his 'poetopographical' walks on Blake, Chaucer, Marlowe, Emilia Lanyer and many others. In 2013 he read at Yoko Ono’s Meltdown. In 2016, he performed his poetry in Iraq at the Babylon Festival. Peckham. His latest collection of poems London Nation is forthcoming from New River Press.
MATHAPELO MOFOKENG
Mathapelo Mofokeng is a writer from Johannesburg. She completed an MA in scriptwriting at Goldsmiths, University of London, after being awarded the Chevening Scholarship. Her graduation short film has screened at BFI Soul Connect, Underwire, London Shorts, Aesthetica, and other festivals. Her short story and essay publications include adda, Popshot Quarterly, Goldsmiths Press, Gagosian Quarterly, and Catapult Best Short Stories Anthology. In 2021 she was awarded the PEN America Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize, she was long-listed for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, a finalist for the Tin House Residency, and nominated for the Rolex Mentor and Protege Arts Iniative.
She is a currently a fellow of the Miles Morland Foundation for African Writers and has been awarded a place at the MacDowell artist residency to work on her debut novel.
ROBERT MONTGOMERY
Robert Montgomery is an internationally known artist and poet. He makes billboard poems, light works, fire poems, woodcuts, paintings and watercolours. He was the British artist selected for the 2012 Kochi Biennale and the 2016 Yinchuan Biennale. His work is in museum collections across the world and he has had solo museum shows at the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado and the Cer Modern Museum in Ankara.
Photograph by Brian Daly
DBC PIERRE
One of the nation's most uncompromising literary voices, DBC Pierre is author of the novels VERNON GOD LITTLE, LUDMILA'S BROKEN ENGLISH and LIGHTS OUT IN WONDERLAND, plus the picture book for distracted adults PETIT MAL and the Hammer novella BREAKFAST WITH THE BORGIAS. The novel VERNON GOD LITTLE sold in 43 territories and won the Man Booker Prize, the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel, the Bollinger Wodehouse Everyman Award and the James Joyce Award from University College Dublin. His ground-breaking new novel MEANWHILE IN DOPAMINE CITY was published by Faber & Faber in August2020 and is short-listed for The Goldsmiths Prize.
Photograph by Sarah Lee
ANTHONY REYNOLDS
Anthony Reynolds organised his first exhibitions in the North West of England in 1969. In 1970 he staged what was then the largest exhibition of contemporary British photography, including over 400 works. In 1976 he was appointed Regional Art Officer for the Arts Council of Great Britain. In 1982, and then again in 1984, he entered the international arena with Collazione Inglese (sic), the first exhibition to take place in Venice as an autonomous intervention at the Biennale. Anthony Reynolds Gallery was established in London in 1985, and the gallery has since staged around 250 exhibitions including the work of around 300 artists.
Photograph by Anthony Reynolds
HEATHCOTE RUTHVEN
Heathcote Ruthven is a writer and editor at New River Press. He has edited poetry anthologies including Year Of The Propaganda Corrupted Plebiscites and When They Start To Love You As A Machine You Should Run. His writing has appeared in International Times, The Idler, The Independent, Vice, and others.
DANIEL SCOTT
Daniel Scott has experience in a range of different publishing roles over the past 28 years. These include sales director of illustrated publishers such as Phaidon and Tate and managing director of Atlantic and Oneworld. Recently he has worked as consultant for Tate and Pavilion and with Heni over the publication of the Francis Bacon catalogue raisonné. He is currently Head of Sales for Allison and Busby and working on several of his own book projects, following the publication of COURTROOM ART (Pavilion 2015).
Photograph by Rachel Scott
IAIN SINCLAIR
Iain Sinclair has lived in (and written about) Hackney, East London, since 1969. His novels include DOWNRIVER (Winner of the James Tait Black Prize & the Encore Award for the Year’s Best Second Novel), RADON DAUGHTERS, LANDOR’S TOWER and DINING ON STONES (which was shortlisted for the Ondaatje prize). Non-fiction books, exploring the myth and matter of London, include LIGHTS OUT FOR THE TERRITORY, LONDON ORBITAL and HACKNEY, THAT ROSE-RED EMPIRE. Sinclair’s account of a one-day walk around the orbital railway – LONDON OVERGROUND - was published in June 2015. THE LAST LONDON was published in 2017.
Photograph by Joy Gordon
INGRID SWENSON
Ingrid Swenson MBE has been director of PEER, the acclaimed east London contemporary art organisation since 1998. She has worked with over 150 emerging, mid-career and international artists, including Martin Creed, Mike Nelson, Siobhán Hapaska, Fiona Banner, Chris Ofili, Danh Vō, Phyllida Barlow and Jadé Fadojutimi. Before her directorship at PEER she worked at several art institutions including Modern Art Oxford, Laing Art Gallery, the Serpentine and the Contemporary Art Society. In addition to various other writing and curatorial projects, she is currently co-president of the UK Section of the International Association of Art Critics.
Photograph by Stephen White & Co
TADE THOMPSON
Tade Thompson is a Yoruba writer best known for his Arthur C. Clarke Award and Nommo Award winning novel ROSEWATER and the Shirley Jackson Award nominated novella THE MURDERS OF MOLLY SOUTHBOURNE. His novels, novellas and short stories have been finalists for the Locus Awards, the Hugo Award, The Philip K. Dick Award, the British Science Fiction Award, The John W. Campbell Award, The Theodore Sturgeon Award among others. He has multiple works under development for screen adaptation. He lives and works in the United Kingdom.
Photograph by David Thompson
