Eastside Projects is made by many people. We are a combination of salaried workers, freelancers and voluntary advisors who feedback and reflect on what we do.
Workers
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Ruth is an artist who makes things. Sometimes those things are artworks which she makes in her studio, and sometimes they are projects like Sonic Signals with Abbas Zahedi (2022), exhibitions like Birmingham Show (2015), Production Show (2016–2017) and Sculpture Show (2009), resources like the Birmingham Art Map, programmes like Workshop Birmingham, infrastructure like STEAMhouse or multiverses like Eastside Projects.
She co-leads Eastside Projects with Gavin Wade and Sahjan Kooner and they work together to curate and produce projects and exhibitions, make things happen, imagine and run the organisation, find the money, and develop strategic plans. She leads on artists support programmes including EOP and The Syllabus.
She is a Company Director and one of Eastside Projects’ founders.
She works four days a week and her salary is £37,393 (£46,742 pro rata)
Contact her on ruth[at]eastsideprojects.org
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Vidhi is a visual arts practitioner whose work spans art-making, curating, and programming. Informed by the idea of ‘cultivation’ as opposed to ‘refinement’—as a postcolonial approach to growth and knowledge, her work branches into diverse formats. This includes developing the Bonington Connects programme (2024-2025), exhibiting and co-curating at venues such as Surface Gallery (Wherever You May Wander, 2024), Backlit Gallery (#OpenToWork, 2025), and Nottingham Contemporary (Frames, 2024). Also things like, leading Art Walks at London Gallery Weekend (2025), and being curious in general. Her art practice explores domesticity and material memory, while her curatorial focus is on developing inclusive and accessible public programs.
She currently serves as a trustee on the Advisory Boards of AA2A and No Jobs In the Arts. She has an upcoming show at Haarlem Art Space (April, 2026)
She works four days (30hrs) a week and her salary is paid at the Real Living Wage.
Contact her on vidhi[at]eastsideprojects.org
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Chelsea is a multimedia artist working with performance, video, and installation to explore the tension between public persona and private experience. Drawing on autobiography, digital culture, feminism, and gender identity, her work blurs sincerity and satire to invite reflection, discomfort, and confrontation.
She is a third-year student in Fine Art at Birmingham City University. Her work has been exhibited at Secret Space (2025), Winterbourne House and Gardens (2024), and Night School (2023-2025), and she has participated in live performances in collaboration with the School of Art and Prayer Room Gallery (2025).
She is paid at the Real Living Wage.
Chelsea’s Instagram: @bychelseamildenhall
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Soul is a practitioner whose work investigates the compulsory politics of technology, of how technology will produce politics, inevitably and accidentally, and how politics will produce technology inevitably and accidentally, and so on, vice versa, all the way round and around and around.
In 2025 he published ‘And Salt the Earth Behind: Designerly Violence & the Eugenic Archive’ with University College London Prejudice in Power Programme.
He is currently a Research Fellow at UCL researching ‘Knowledge Futures in the Age of AI’.
His first book ‘AI Pedagogies’ co written with Lily McCraith and published by The Science Gallery London and Kings College London will soon be republished in an updated 2nd edition with Pagemasters Publishing.
He works four days (30hrs) a week and his salary is paid at the Real Living Wage.
Contact him on soul[at]eastsideprojects.org
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Sahjan is an amalgamation of inherited worlds and speculative futures, they work in a freelance capacity to support their practice and owe a great deal to their family, they are a student of the dream state. Using video and installation, they create expansive worlds that explore the traces of love, hope and imagination that make our lives possible, along with examining a debris of questions around the technological, social and racialised structures that augment life.
They live and work in Wolverhampton. They were Operation Assistant at Eastside Projects from 2018–19 and returned to work with us as an Incidental artist in 2022, joining the Advisory Board in 2025. They became a Company Director and joined the Staff Team as Scout in 2026.
They work one day a week and their salary is £9348.40 (£46,742 pro rata)
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Gavin is an artist-curator and Senior Research Fellow at Birmingham City University. He co-leads Eastside Projects with Ruth Claxton and Sahjan Kooner. His (co)curated exhibitions include ‘Sonia Boyce: In the Castle of My Skin’ (2020), ‘This is the Gallery and the Gallery is Many Things X’ (2018), and ‘Display Show’ (2015–16), Temple Bar Gallery/Eastside Projects/Stroom den Haag.
Gavin makes/has made art in public squares, hospitals, shopping malls, naval frigates, cathedrals, Commons, Parks, The London Underground, Dudley Zoo, on social media and the future Smithfield Market in the centre of Birmingham (2028). His books include ‘Is this the way the universe works? (555/77 Verses)’ (2023) published by Set Margins’, ‘Upcycle This Book’ (2017) and ‘Has Man A Function In Universe’ (2008), both published by Book Works. He is a Company Director and one of Eastside Projects’ founders.
He works full time and his salary is £46,742.
Contact him on gavin[at]eastsideprojects.org
Associate Researcher
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Elisabeth Del Prete (she/her) is a London-based, Italian/British curator.
Her work explores socio-political issues through collaborative art practices. She is currently undertaking an AHRC-funded PhD at Birmingham City University with Flat Time House and Eastside Projects. Alongside her research, Elisabeth is Associate Lecturer on MA Curating Contemporary Art at Royal College of Art and also works independently through UK-based and international collaborations.
Prior to starting her PhD, Elisabeth worked at UP Projects as Senior Curator (2018-2024). In 2018-19, Elisabeth was co-curator of AFTER LEAVING/BEFORE ARRIVING, the 12th edition of Kaunas Biennial, Lithuania. Between 2010-2016, Elisabeth worked as a Post-War and Contemporary Art auction house specialist at Christie’s, London and Wright, New York.
Freelancers
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An Endless Supply is a design studio in Birmingham, UK, established in 2011 by Harry Blackett and Robin Kirkham. They work with artists and organisations making websites, printed matter and identities.
An Endless Supply work with us on a freelance basis on print and web design.
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Suzi is a freelance art technician and maker based in Birmingham who studied sculpture at the Slade School of Art. She is a maker of functional ceramics and a member of Modern Clay co-op; a co-working and public project space run by its artist members.
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Rose has been helping us keep Eastside Projects clean and tidy since 2020. She is paid the Real Living Wage and contracted through DST Cleaning Services.
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Matt is from a fine art background and began his career working with gallery technical teams. He established Plane Structure in 2011 to fulfil a need for skilled art fabricators in Birmingham. Since then the company and its workshop has grown to deliver specialist carpentry and joinery as well as gallery installation.
Matt regularly works with us on a freelance basis to realise exhibitions and projects.
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Neisa is an independent ICB bookkeeper with over 20 years’ experience, providing a range of accounting services for Freelancers, startups, small to medium businesses and Not for profit Organisations. Neisa and her colleagues work with us two days a month, on a freelance basis.
She has been keeping our finances in order since 2012.
The Chorus
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Tammy Woodrow is a multidisciplinary performance artist whose mixed heritage has roots in Indonesia, Holland and England. Her practice moves fluidly between postcolonial critique, feminist theory, and deeply personal narrative, she uses her own body as both subject and site of inquiry. Her work stands as a testament to the capacity of performance to hold memory, resist erasure, and reframe the female body as a living archive of resilience and transformation.
Her recent work includes a collaboration with Anat Ben David of Chicks on Speed, presented at the IKON Gallery in Birmingham. She also performed a piece inspired by an 1815 tourist guide written during the brief English occupation of Java, following Dutch rule at Fierce Jams #01. In addition to her solo projects, Tammy is part of the postfeminist, postpunk collective Bapz on Crack and is a founding member of Ventilator Gallery, an experimental platform supporting women artists.
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Mathew Leung is an architect and founding partner of Assemble. Where he has led a broad range of projects, including public realm, workspace and deep retrofit of existing buildings. He was the chair of the board of directors of Blackhorse Workshop – a public workshop Assemble established in Walthamstow, and has lectured at cultural and educational institutions across the world. He has taught at the Cass School of Architecture with Cass Cities, Spatial Planning and Urban Design unit and as a final year tutor on the postgraduate Architecture course at Central Saint Martins.
He joined The Chorus in 2025
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With a background in Architecture / Property – Construction and Project Management, Déschanell is an Architectural Designer within the built environment. Keen to maintain her art practices she also delves into set design, video production and creative direction.
Déschanell is business orientated with a focus on strategic approaches to growth and risk management. She has a diverse educational history and interests in juxtaposing subjects. She is exuberant and inquisitive and hopes to bring innovative, thought-provoking viewpoints to further unlock the potential of arts and culture in Birmingham.
She joined The Chorus in 2025
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Charlie is a co-lead at CIVIC SQUARE where they are working to demonstrate neighbourhood-led social and climate transitions. With a background in architecture, he is particularly interested in considering the future of housing and infrastructure and how we may collectively work towards more regenerative futures. He’s hoping that, through the Chorus, he might be able to bring perspectives and knowledge to inform how the organisation views its role both in the present and also into our collective socio-ecological futures
He joined the Chorus in 2025
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Julie has been an arts practitioner since 1998 making a broad range of creative work in galleries and the public realm. More recently she has experience of teaching young people in SEN secondary and mainstream and is currently in training as a Therapeutic Counsellor.
She joined the Chorus in 2025.
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Sym (they/them/it) is a movement/performance artist, facilitator and ritual maker with the exploration of connection/communication on micro and macro levels situated at the core of its practise. They bring facilitation and community work experience, and are particularly keen to share and deepen knowledges emanating from lived experiences and healing justice technologies, in order to move towards sustainable care in new ways.
They joined the Chorus in 2025.
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Sarah is a team member at CIVIC SQUARE where she works within Core Organising. Having been a young creative in the city, Sarah quickly realised that the voices of young people were needed in the governing, brainstorming and deliberation capacities of organisations. Her love for the communities of the city especially Digbeth & Deritend is what led her to pursue community organising.
She sees Birmingham as a beautifully creative and diverse city but one where representation and confidence to engage in the creative space is still lacking. She is hoping to help to not only build this bridge but also embody and represent it.
She joined the Chorus in 2025.
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Sarah is a design-researcher and creative practitioner who believes creativity can be the catalyst for positive change in response to current ecological challenges. Her practice incorporates circular design principles and bio-fabrication processes to create new material alternatives and explore the intangible relationship between materials, the human senses, and future environments, whilst questioning the role of waste in our future material culture.
She joined the Chorus in 2025.
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Yva is a visual artist of East-Asian heritage based in Hertfordshire. From 2021–22 she was an EOP Thinker and since 2022, she has been on the Artists Council at a-n The Artists Information Company. In this role she has gained new perspectives on how to work collectively and gained valuable lessons in speaking up against injustices and creating safe spaces for sharing thoughts with those who have different views.
Yva’s work has been shown in various exhibitions such as Coventry Biennial, CAFAM Biennale, Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival and Eastside Projects Summer Camp.
She joined the Chorus in 2025.
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Lily recently moved to Birmingham having formerly worked as Curator at The Showroom in London where she worked on programming, fundraising, policies, organisational ecosystems and relationships. She is an Associate Lecturer on the MA Curating & Collections at Chelsea College of Arts, London; and a member of the network ‘And Others: The Gendered Politics & Practices of Art Collectives’, which approaches cultural collectivity from an intersectional feminist perspective. Moving to Birmingham coincides with starting a family so she also brings perspectives as a cultural worker connected to the Art Working Parents network.
She joined the Chorus in 2025.
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Nadira is a Birmingham based creative, artist and creative producer with experience in digital media, social media management and youth work. She is particularly interested in helping young people see that art is as accessible as any other tangible material in their life and not a practice reserved for the white and wealthy.
She joined the Chorus in 2025.
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Lezli is an ‘experienced’ art trained primary teacher who is passionate about art opportunities for young people. She has spent her entire teaching career working in inner city Birmingham and has been involved in, led, planned and executed many art projects in schools and beyond working collaboratively with artists, galleries, curators, art organisations and makers.
She joined the Chorus in 2025.
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Karen has worked as an Integrative Counsellor in private practice for more than 10 years supporting clients in different spaces with different needs. She has worked across different industries providing wellbeing, training, coaching and consultancy, supporting organisations that engage in advocacy and general support for refugees and migrants; organisations providing leadership and development training and support in the social change and arts sector; collectives in the UK, Luxemburg and Belgium exploring aspects of identity and liberation; and collaborations exploring the shared space, environment, and people.
She joined the Chorus in 2025.
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Faith is a Fine Art Student at Birmingham City University with 17 years of experience working as a Secondary History teacher. She also works teaching beginners English to refugees in the UK and to young people across continental Europe. She is particularly interested in how gallery spaces respond to their surroundings, engage with changes in culture and society and connect with the public
She joined the Chorus in 2025.
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Lucy was Artist Curator Trainee at Eastside Projects from 2023 to 2025, which shaped her curatorial practice and understanding of artist-led ecosystems (and a job she LOVED). She is interested in the ways organisations resemble planetary systems – each orbiting, colliding, and sustaining one another within wider constellations of practice.Drawing practices, rehearsing, and pre-existing structures inform her approach to curating and studio work. Lucy is currently Vice Chair of Coventry Artspace and on the committee for the University of Warwick’s Art Collection. Through The Chorus, she continues to love and support EP, and explore how artists and organisations (and their structures) can move together like celestial bodies on the ‘orbital road’.
She joined the Chorus in 2025
Advisory Board
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Helen Legg is the Artistic Director of the Royal Academy of Arts in London where she is responsible for the Academy’s exhibitions, collections and public programming. Previous to this she was the Director of Tate Liverpool from 2018-2026 where she oversaw high profile international exhibitions and commissions, alongside the transformation of the gallery’s Grade 1-listed building, which will reopen in 2027. She was the director of Spike Island in Bristol from 2010 to 2018 and the curator at Ikon Gallery from 2005 to 2010.
As a curator Helen has worked extensively with many different artists and participated in selection committees for both British and Scottish representation at the Venice Biennale and has also been a judge for the Turner Prize, the Contemporary Art Society’s Museums Award, the Hepworth Prize for Sculpture, the Jerwood Drawing Prize and the Paul Hamlyn Artist’s Awards.
She joined the Advisory Board in 2026 -
Danil Boparai is a London-based content strategist and editorial director working at the intersection of fashion, culture and digital media.
He began his career as a Digital Intern at Eastside Projects through The Weston Jerwood Creative Bursaries, before spending two years at Dezeen, where he led social content across architecture and design as Social Editor. He then spent five years at i-D as Social Director, helping shape the publication’s social strategy and pioneering a number of its editorial short-form video formats, developing digital-first storytelling for a new generation of audiences.
He is now Content Strategy Director at Dazed, where he leads content strategy across social and video platforms and website, creating original editorial formats and commercial campaigns for some of the world’s leading fashion, culture and lifestyle brands.
He joined the Advisory Board in 2026
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Becky Shaw is an artist and Professor in Fine Art Practice at Birmingham City University. She makes live, collaborative artworks often in institutions of ‘public good’ including healthcare, education, utilities, housing and work. In the 2000s she co-ran Static Gallery, Liverpool.
She has been an Advisory Board member since 2023.
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Bushra Mohamed is a British-Kenyan architect. She is the Director of Msoma Architects, a London-based architecture and research practice that centers peripheral identities, cultures and people within the built environment.
Her practice is entangled with academia, where she develops decolonial pedagogical frameworks at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, Kingston School of Art, and the University of Cambridge.
Bushra has contributed to several publications, including Sound Advice’s NOW YOU KNOW, the Architectural Review, the AA Files, and the RIBA Journal. In 2020, she was named a RIBA Rising Star.
She joined the Advisory Board in 2023.
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Anita Lawlor is a communications expert with over ten years’ experience working in galleries and arts organisations, on a range of curatorial projects, campaigns, events programmes and publications.
She currently works as Marketing and Communications Manager at Artangel.
She joined the Advisory Board in 2021.
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Paul McKeown is a Partner at Moore Kingston Smith Accountants where he is Head of Valuations in the UK with 35 years of experience. He is a keen art collector and joined the Advisory Board after discovering Eastside Projects and the work of EOP members at a Contemporary Arts Society event in London.
He joined the Advisory Board in 2012 and provides financial expertise and diligence.
Company Directors
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Eastside Projects has been a Not for Profit Company Limited by Guarantee Reg: 6402007 since 2007.
Eastside Projects Ltd’s founding Company Directors were Simon Bloor, Tom Bloor, Ruth Claxton, Celine Condorelli, James Langdon, and Gavin Wade
The current company directors are Ruth Claxton, Gavin Wade and Sahjan Kooner and legal responsibility for the company lies with them.
They co-lead Eastside Projects and run the organisation on a day-to-day basis.
Artist Curator Trainees and Assistants
2024–25 Harmanpreet Randhawa, Chelsea Mildenhall
2023–25 Lucy Grubb, Annie Dale
2023–24 Naoibh McNamee, Fahima Akthar, Molly Jones,
2021–23 Dinosaur Kilby, Jaz Morrison
2021–22 Kathy Smith, Trixiebella Suen, Ashley Wilson
2019–21 Yasmyn Nettle, Candice Nembhard, Polly Brandt
2018–19 Zach Dawson, Annabel Duggleby, Sahjan Kooner
2017–18 Zach Dawson, Emily Hawes, Brenda Hickin
2016–17 Emma McKinney, Joe Stogdale
2015–16 Anna Cremin Horton, Effy Harle, Danil Boparai
2014–15 Amy Kirkham, Nathan Hansen, James Harris
2013–14 Maya Darrell Hewins, Mathew Parkin, Laurence Price
2012–13 Beth Bramich, Beth Lewis, Joe Welden
2011–12 Alex Bailey, Julia Gouin, George Park, Samuel Rogers
2010–11 Harry Blackett, Gene George Earle, Kate Hattley, Robin Kirkham, Adam Smythe
Artist Caretakers and EOP programmers
Borbála Soós (2022–23), Amelia Hawk (2017–2023), Ania Bas (2019–20), Joanne Masding (2016–17), Anna Santomauro (2015–16), Elinor Morgan (2013–15), Katy Woods (2011–13), Elizabeth Rowe (2008–13).
Offsite Curators and Artist Organisers
Zoë Sawyer (2018–2023), Tim Mills (2022–23), Ania Bas (2021–22), Vanessa Boni (2016–18).
Associate Researcher
Lucy Lopez (2016–18)
Advisory Board
2025 Becky Shaw, Andrea Phillips, Bushra Mohamed, Paul McKeown, Anita Lawlor, Sahjan Kooner + Tom Bloor (Company Director).
2024 Becky Shaw, Andrea Phillips, Bushra Mohamed, Paul McKeown, Anita Lawlor, Sahjan Kooner + Tom Bloor (Company Director).
2023 Bob Ghosh (Chair), Roo Dhissou, Anita Lawlor, Paul McKeown, Andrea Phillips (Chair), Jazz Swali, Nathan Tromans, Bushra Mohamed, Becky Shaw + Tom Bloor (Company Director).
2022 Bob Ghosh (Chair), Vanley Burke, Roo Dhissou, Anita Lawlor, Katherine Lloyd, Paul McKeown, Andrea Phillips, Jazz Swali, Nathan Tromans + Tom Bloor (Company Director).
2021 Bob Ghosh (Chair), Vanley Burke, Roo Dhissou, Anita Lawlor, Katherine Lloyd, Paul McKeown, Andrea Phillips, Jazz Swali, Nathan Tromans + Tom Bloor (Company Director).
2020 Bob Ghosh (Chair), Vanley Burke, Nathan Tromans, Kelly Large, Paul McKeown, Andrea Phillips, Tom Bloor, Simon Bloor.
2019 Bob Ghosh (Chair), Jonathan Harris, Anna Horton Cremin, Kelly Large, Paul McKeown, Julia Lowe, Andrea Phillips, Joanne Tatham, Tom Bloor, Simon Bloor, Celine Condorelli.
2018 Bob Ghosh (Chair), Jonathan Harris, Anna Horton Cremin, Kelly Large, Paul McKeown, Julia Lowe, Andrea Phillips, Joanne Tatham, Tom Bloor, Simon Bloor, Celine Condorelli.
2017 Joanne Tatham (Chair), Megan Albright, Bob Ghosh, Jonathan Harris, Anna Horton Cremin, Paul McKeown, Andrea Phillips, Sally Shaw, Tom Bloor, Simon Bloor, Celine Condorelli, James Langdon.
2016 Joanne Tatham (Chair), Megan Albright, Jo Birch, Gavin Delahunty, Jonathan Harris, Paul Harrison, Paul McKeown, Sally Shaw, Tom Bloor, Simon Bloor, Celine Condorelli, James Langdon.
2015 Joanne Tatham (Chair), Megan Albright, Jo Birch, John Butler, Gavin Delahunty, Paul Harrison, Paul McKeown, Michele Mooney, Sally Shaw, Tom Bloor, Simon Bloor, Celine Condorelli, James Langdon.
2014 Joanne Tatham (Chair), Megan Albright, John Butler, Gavin Delahunty, Paul Harrison, Paul McKeown, Michele Mooney, Sally Shaw, Tom Bloor, Simon Bloor, Celine Condorelli, James Langdon.
2013 Paul Harrison (Chair), John Butler, Gavin Delahunty, Paul McKeown, Michele Mooney, Tom Bloor, Simon Bloor, Celine Condorelli, James Langdon.
2012 Paul Harrison (Chair), John Butler, Peter Cole, Gavin Delahunty, Michele Mooney,Tom Bloor, Simon Bloor, Celine Condorelli, James Langdon.
2011 Paul Harrison (Chair), John Butler, Peter Cole, Gavin Delahunty, Michele Mooney, Tom Bloor, Simon Bloor, Ruth Claxton, Celine Condorelli, James Langdon.
2010 Mel Jordan (Chair), John Butler, Peter Cole, Ceri Hand, Nav Haq, Michelle Mooney, Tom Bloor, Simon Bloor, Ruth Claxton, Celine Condorelli, James Langdon.
2009 Mel Jordan (Chair), Yasmeen Baig-Clifford, John Butler, Nami Patel, Tom Bloor, Simon Bloor, Ruth Claxton, Celine Condorelli, James Langdon.
2008 Mel Jordan (Chair), Yasmeen Baig Clifford, John Butler, Tom Bloor, Simon Bloor, Ruth Claxton, Celine Condorelli, James Langdon.
2007 John Butler, Tom Bloor, Simon Bloor, Ruth Claxton, Celine Condorelli, James Langdon.
Cultural Citizens
2021–23 Jane Thakordin, Gugan Gil, Marcus Keating
2020–21 Carla Busuttil, Cruse, Toqueer Ahmed Quyyam, Selina Sagnia, Anam Zafar
EOP Thinkers
2022–23 Sophie Bullen, Jennifer Brough, Rhiannon Evans, Rene Francis-McBrearty, Tesha Murrain–Hernandez
2020–21 Matt Gale, Aitor Gonzalez, Danni Heath, Bijan Moosavi, Yva Jung