Cindy Sissohko

Based in Lisbon, Cindy is an independent curator, cultural producer, art consultant, and writer whose practice focuses on anticolonial, social and political approaches within the arts and culture.

She is the Associate Program Director (Africa & Europe) at KADIST. She recently worked at the Wellcome Collection, where she curated Hard Graft: Work, Health & Rights (2025) and Expecting: Birth, Belief & Protection (closing on 19 April 2026). She was the co-curator of the French Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2024.

Micha Nicheva

Micha is an independent researcher, design strategist, facilitator and coach. She’s the founder of Thought Pattern, a coaching and training studio focused on neurodiversity in the creative and tech industry.

Over the past 15 years, she has worked with a range of companies like TfL, Google and the Institute of Global Health.

Rob Hallifax

Rob is a London-based mechanical engineer turned product manager. He is co-founder of Windfall Energy where he’s developing a home battery storage helping people in flats save money on their bills and use more clean energy.

He set up London’s biggest crowdfunding meetup, advises others with their campaigns and has started a couple of companies on the back of ten Kickstarter projects.

Matt Martin

Matt Martin is a photographer, curator, publisher and gallery owner based in Penzance, Cornwall. Matt has been making zines for 20 years and started the project the Photocopy Club in 2010. He co-ran Doomed Gallery Dalston and was the co-founder of the Photobook Cafe, before starting TONER, a photographic gallery and workshop space.

Dane Whitehurst

Dane Whitehurst is the Creative Director at Burgopak, a company focussed on using packaging design and cardboard engineering to build education, delight and sustainability into the unboxing of products.

Dane is also a visiting lecturer and speaks internationally on the subject of packaging design. He is credited with a host of international patents and design awards and his work has been featured in galleries and museums including the MoMA, NY and The Design Museum, London.

Antonia Stringer

Antonia is the founder of Earthbound Press, a specialist risograph studio and publisher of comics and poetry. As both a commercial press and printer-publisher the wider project of the press is to explore the possibilities of risograph printing.

Now into its seventh year, the Earthbound Poetry Series has featured over 200 poets and artists including Alice Notley, Bernadette Mayer, Cecilia Vicuña, Julia Ball, and Jasper Johns.

Aaron Straup Cope

Aaron is currently Head of Internet Typing at the San Francisco International Airport Museum.

Befor that, Aaron was Editor at Large at Mapzen, the creator of the Who’s On First gazetteer project, Head of Engineering at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, Senior Engineer at Flickr and Design Technologist and Director of Inappropriate Project Names at Stamen Design.

(Note Aaron will be giving this talk remotely)