Our panellists include Nellie Alston, Sarisha Kumar and Dr Kate McMillan. The discussion will be chaired by Julia DeFabo.

Nellie Alston co-runs T A P E collective which is currently touring its season 'But Where Are You Really From? ‘around the UK in partnership with the BFI. She also programmes short films for festivals including London Film Festival and London Short Film Festival. When she isn’t freelancing, she works as a Distribution Executive at National Theatre Live where working on ways to share theatre with the wider country through digital audience engagement has been her key drive. She is very passionate about all things independent film and developing ways to increase access to the arts.

Sarisha Kumar is a creative producer and facilitator. As Head of Talent at Poet in the City, she leads Poet in the City Producers, a national creative skills training programme for young producers in London, Newcastle and Exeter. In 2020, Sarisha set up the National Producers Taskforce, a network of cross-sector organisations addressing key issues surrounding producer talent development and career pathways. Outside of her role at Poet in the City, Sarisha is a trustee of the Almeida Theatre and a Clore Emerging Leader 2021.

Dr Kate McMillan is an artist and Senior Lecturer in Creative Practice at King’s College, London. Her research engages with histories connected to colonial violence and women’s knowledges. She is the annual author of ‘Representation of Female Artists in Britain’ commissioned by the Freelands Foundation, as well as various other academic publications that consider gender inequality in the visual arts. In 2019 Palgrave Macmillan published her monograph called ‘Contemporary Art & Unforgetting in Colonial Landscapes: Islands of Empire’ which investigates female artists in the global south and the ways their practices defy colonial amnesia. Her own creative practice incorporates sound, film, textiles and sculpture to create immersive environments which aim to engender empathic responses to difficult histories. www.katemcmillan.net

Julia DeFabo is the Social Media Manager at Art UK (artuk.org) and a Trustee at the Leach Pottery. She volunteers as a Project Manager for YPIA. Her research is centered on cross-cultural exchange and post-colonialism, with a particular focus on the islands of the southwestern Indian Ocean. She has worked with galleries in the US and the UK and has contributed to projects, publications, and exhibitions with organizations such as the Smithsonian Institution, the Dak’Art Biennale, and the Rencontres d’Arles. Most recently, she co-curated the exhibition ‘Archives of resistance and repair’ at Neue Galerie in Innsbruck, which is temporarily closed while Austria is in lockdown.