Kamila Kuc

Dr. Kamila Kuc
Creative Lead (UK), Creative Film Producer and Project Lead (London). Kuc will oversee the creative side of this project. Kuc is a Polish-born, London-based filmmaker whose work has shown internationally in places such as National Gallery (DC), Goethe Institute (Georgia), the Whitechapel Gallery, the ICA and BFI London, Ji.hlava Documentary Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, and many others. Kuc's first feature, What We Shared (UK/USA/Abkhazia, 2021; funded by the Arts Council England) dealt with trauma of the 1992-93 war between Abkhazia and Georgia and led her to seek training in Social Justice and Multicultural Counseling at Seattle University. She’s been drawing upon her knowledge as a counselor in her artistic work. Her Plot of Blue Sky (UK/Morocco, 2023; funded by the Arts Council England) won the 2024 British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies Practice Research award in Short Film category for her 'collaborative practices and ethical approach to working in different cultural contexts.' Her Plot of Blue Sky has also recently been awarded the 2024 Jean Rouch Award at the Society for Visual Anthropology Film & Media Festival (Tampa, Florida) in recognition of 'the exemplary use of ethnofiction techniques produced in a collaborative manner that embody the spirit of Rouch's "anthropologie partagée" (shared anthropology).' Kuc’s oeuvre has been extensively written about by the leading documentary film scholar, Dara Waldron in the 10th edition of Found Footage Magazine (October 2024). Kuc expertise in the art of ethical filmmaking, her internationally recognised profile, far reaching creative networks, as well as her experience of managing creative teams and large funds make her a suitable Creative Lead for this project.

Dr. Thomas Doherty (USA)
Doherty will play a key part in the R&D and delivery phases. Doherty will deliver consultations about climate psychology, will also co-design and deliver climate crisis workshops. He is a Portland-based world-leading expert on climate crisis anxiety, he is a climate crisis therapist, author and the acclaimed Climate Change & Happiness podcast creator and host. Doherty is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and Past President of the Society for Environmental, Population and Conservation Psychology. He has multiple publications and professional presentations on nature, mental health and well-being; his groundbreaking paper on the psychological impact of climate change, co-authored by Susan Clayton has been cited over 800 times. He was also the founding editor of the peer-reviewed interdisciplinary academic journal Ecopsychology. Hyperobjects & Climate Hostages forms one of the key case studies in Doherty’s forthcoming book The Sustainable Self: A Guide to Coping, Identity, and Action in a Climate Changed World (2025).

Dr. Julian Manley (UK)
Manley will play a key part in the R&D and delivery phases. He will provide consultations in social dreaming. He will assist in designing social dreaming matrices as well as deliver them in certain locations. He will also train Project Leads in Seattle & Detroit on delivering social dreaming matrices. Manley is a world-leading authority on social dreaming and the author of Social Dreaming, Associative Thinking and Intensities of Affect (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), and Co-editor and author of Social Dreaming: Philosophy, Research, Theory and Practice (Routledge, 2019) as well as numerous academic journals. He is a Director of both the Centre for Social Dreaming and the Climate Psychology Alliance and Scholar of the British Psychoanalytic Council. He has successfully employed the psycho-social method of social dreaming in wide multicultural contexts, including exploring climate change and decolonisation. Most recently, he has hosted a series of online Social Dreaming sessions in partnership with the University of Johannesburg as an investigation of decolonisation and delivered a series of Social Dreaming Matrices in Brasil, where he has introduced social dreaming as creative practice among indigenous students, exploring it in a context of climate change. Between 2021-22 Manley led an online weekly series of Social Dreaming Matrices, hosted by Duke University Press's Laboratory for Social Choreography at the Keenan Institute of Ethics, which Kuc and San (Project Lead Seattle) attended.

Lisa Marie Hall (UK)
Hall will deliver four support sessions to the Creative Lead throughout the project to ensure that environmental sustainability and well-being of all is maintained throughout this project. Hall has worked for over 25 years crafting the look of major US-UK TV shows. She ran large departments with diverse skillsets. Her focus is diversity & inclusion as she encourages creative individuals to design psychologically safer ways to work on productions.

Katherin Hervey (USA)
Creative Film Producer. Together with Kuc and Sedgwick, Hervey will help raise money for the production of the feature film. Hervey is a filmmaker known for Prison Within - an award-winning film which sprung from her work as a Los Angeles Public Defender and volunteer prison college instructor, where she worked weekly with men who had committed serious acts of violence and had been sentenced to die in prison. The film is also an accredited class titled “Pathways to Justice” at Seattle University School of Law, part of an educational curriculum for federal and state prisons nationwide. She has produced, directed and written short documentaries for various broadcast stations in the US. KCTS/PBS broadcast. Hervey was also the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Shades of Contradiction, a nationally distributed arts and culture magazine dedicated to critical thinking and creative action. She owns Raw Love - a Los Angeles-based film production company dedicated to works that explore social justice issues. Her current projects include Trouble Finds Me (Executive Producer, Producer), Stitching the Soul (Director, Producer) and the upcoming podcast Broken is Beautiful, co-hosted with Christopher Blackwell, an award-winning journalist currently incarcerated in Washington State. Together with Sedgwick, Hervey is in the process of setting up a new production company, which will co-produce Hyperobjects feature film.

Katie Sedgwick (USA)
Creative Film Producer. Together with Kuc and Hervey, Sedgwick will help raise money for the production of the feature film. Sedgwick’s artistic practices focuses on working collectively towards wholeness, healing, mercy, and redemption. Katie believes that storytelling has the power to transform, and through her work, she aims to create spaces for dialogue, understanding, and connection. She does so through both her practice as a documentary filmmaker and a licensed psychotherapist specializing in Jungian philosophy and dreamwork. With Hervey, Sedgwick is the co-owner of a production company, On the Border Films and is currently bringing seven documentary films to life, Kuc’s project being one of them. Katie’s practice as an analyst draws upon dreams and symbols to connect with the unconscious.  She is the owner of a psychotherapy group practice where she mentors student clinicians.

Reed O’Beirne (UK/USA)
Executive Film Producer. Based between Seattle and London, and with extensive contacts in Los Angeles, O’Beirne will assist Kuc and other Creative Producers in raising money for the production of the feature film. O’Beirne has already provided a significant contribution towards delivering Hyperobjects. He is a creative technologist who supports artists and arts organisations with complex technological solutions for their projects. O’Beirne was the Movies and Music Category Manager for Amazon Marketplace, and a Senior Business Developer at IMDb with a focus on content and technology acquisition/licensing deals. He also designed, project-managed and led many software launches, including leading the first group to integrate a commercial project with Amazon Web Services. His background includes a Creative Writing with Computer Science degree from Vanderbilt University and activism for Greenpeace (which he engaged in with with Doherty, one of the Project’s Consultants). His films and art projects have been exhibited at over sixty-five festivals and art events in twenty countries, including the Edinburgh Film Festival, Shanghai’s OCAT Contemporary Art Terminal and the AVIFF Cannes Festival. In the past few years he founded his start up Assistant Engineering, which also allows him to focus on supporting art projects that focus on climate change as he also invests in developing creative tech for good solutions.

Diane Taylor-Karrer (UK)
Creative Project Producer. Taylor-Karrer will help ensure the smooth delivery of the project’s main activities (workshops, talks, etc). Taylor-Karrer will be in charge of the project's budget, as well as the final grant monitoring and evaluations reports. Together with Kuc, Hervey and Sedgwick, she will co-design a film festival strategy. Taylor-Karrer is an accomplished writer and producer with a diverse background in film, television, and the arts. Her feature, The Savages, was selected for the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum, while her comedy feature Personal Jesus (co-written with Ben Kent), reached the finals of the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards. Her feature Ana's Holiday was selected for the BAFTA Rocliffe Children’s Media Forum. In 2022, she developed, wrote, and produced the fantasy LGBTQ+ short Empress ClawScream. Beyond her creative work, Taylor-Karrer has extensive experience in production management and arts development. She coordinated over 100 brand promo and campaign shoots during her time at QVC. She played a key role in documenting the impact of large-scale, publicly funded Arts Council and Lottery programmes, while cultivating partnerships with charities, community groups, and other organizations to explore future development opportunities as a freelance producer.

Ranita San
Project Lead (Seattle, USA)/Partner Organisation (Cadence Video Poetry Festival). San will help the Creative Lead oversee the successful delivery of all the project activities in Seattle. She will also co-deliver social dreaming matrices in Seattle. San is a Seattle-based intermedia artist of Turkish origin whose work utilises dreams. She is a curator and a co-director, with Chelsea Werner-Jatzke, of Cadence Video Poetry Festival, which is also a host of the Poetry Workshop and one of our Partner Organisations.

Augusta Morrison (USA)
Project Co-Lead (Detroit, USA)/Partner Organisation (Sidewalk). Morrison is a cultural producer, community organizer, and musician. As Program Director at Sidewalk Detroit, Augusta employs a grassroots and Emergent Strategy approach to foster meaningful connections between artists and communities. Their background in Arts and Humanities and Arts Education from Michigan State University has led them to work at the Broad Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, and Cranbrook Art Museum. At Sidewalk Detroit, Augusta collaborates closely with each team member to ensure program efficiency and advancement. They also lead efforts to organize community and artist-specific engagements and support curatorial work, influencing the organization's artistic direction. Augusta is deeply committed to Detroit's arts and culture community, promoting whole-hearted inclusivity in public and green spaces. Beyond their local endeavors, Augusta tours nationally as a violinist.

Jessica Allie (USA)
Project Co-Lead (Detroit, USA)/Partner Organisation (BULK Space). BULK Space will provide a space for Climate Crisis & Filmmaking Workshops, as well as for film processing. Together with Sidewalk, they will act as an important interlocutor between Creative Lead, Project Lead and the local communities. Allie is an independent curator and arts organizer. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Curatorial Practice from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2024. With over ten years of experience in the art and culture, she has had the opportunity to work with a number of national and international arts organizations and institutions such as the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA), Red Bull Arts, Contemporary&, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD), SPACES, Independent Curators International, Lincoln Center and ApexArt. Her main focus is exploring how the arts continue to act as a means of cultural preservation among change.

Dom Breadmore
Project Lead (Coventry, UK)/Partner Organisation (Ludic Rooms). Breadmore will deliver one of the Coventry-based filmmaking workshops. He is a crucial point of access for the Coventry branch of this project because of his work at Ludic Rooms - a grassroots organisation led by a collaborative approach and a passion fo creative technology, which he co-funded and currently leads. Breadmore is an artist and academic who has spent more than twenty years using technologies to help uncover the stories behind marginalised people and places. He has worked extensively with galleries, museums, local authorities, and more than 100 schools and education settings across the UK.

- Ecological Identity Map Workshops – delivered by Doherty, alongside additional therapists and counsellors who specialise in climate crisis anxiety and climate crisis-related trauma. These workshops focus on exploring the participants’ relationship to nature, as well as their political and ecological identities through a series of participatory, hands-on exercises. At the end of these workshops, each participant will author their ecological identity map, which will be collectively shared and discussed in relation to environmentalism and the prevailing narratives of climate crisis. Participants will draw upon these workshops in the final filmmaking stage.
- Social Dreaming Matrices – delivered by Manley, alongside specially trained social dreaming hosts. This psycho-social method is a structured way to collectively share dreams. The sharing happens in a safe matrix that lasts 50 minutes and it is followed by a 30-minute reflection session in which participants co-create a mind map of associations that transpired in the matrix. The meaning of the shared dream is expanded through free association and systemic thinking to give voice to diverse perspectives. In Hyperobjects & Climate Hostages, the matrix seeks to delve beyond existing parameters of the dominant climate crisis narratives towards new interpretations through collective imagining that helps enact societal transformation.

- Poetry Workshops – the aim of these writing workshops is to teach participants short form creative writing skills, so that they can create content for their films;
- Poetry & Performance Workshops - teaching participants how to use more embodied forms of writing through performance;
- Photography Workshops – participants will be given 35mm disposable cameras; they will be encouraged to implement these photographs into their final films;
- Dance Workshops - participants will work with two dance professionals on developing simple choreographic sets they can implement into their films;
- Filmmaking Workshops –  these workshops will consist of three stages, in which participants will explore diverse ethical ways to engage with climate crisis-related narratives. Using Haraway’s framework of situated knowledge, participants will be encouraged to critically engage with how their narratives are presented and the implications of those representations;
- Music and Performance Workshops - these workshops will help participants understand how they can create their own creative sounds by using their voices and bodies.

- Film Screenings - screenings of the final film, as well as specially curated programme of films will take place on their own as well as part of film festivals. Wherever possible, these will be delivered in conjunction with Panel Discussions and Q&A sessions with participants, Project Leads, Creative Lead and Consultants.
- Panel Discussions – in the first place, these discussions will take place in the key project locations: London, Coventry, Seattle and Detroit. Wherever possible, they will be held in hybrid spaces to achieve a greater accessibility and impact. Versions of these discussions will also accompany international film screenings wherever possible. Their aim is to showcase diverse and often less heard voices on the climate crisis, ranging from artists, activists and scholars to counsellors and therapists. These panel discussions will be designed to help to shift the narratives about the climate crisis away from the disaster stories and white saviour towards more inclusive and empowering ways of addressing the climate crisis and the discourse about it.

- contributing to the co-creation of a more inclusive and more accurate image of diverse global communities in climate crisis discourse and media representations;
- empowering individuals from marginalized communities by giving them the tools and platforms to express their unique perspectives on the climate crisis and shape the discourse around the climate crisis. This not only amplifies voices that are often underrepresented in mainstream discourse but also ensures that these voices play a critical role in shaping new narratives around the climate crisis.

- using creative and mental health interventions to provide participants and audiences with a deeper understanding of the climate crisis and its impact on diverse communities;
- equipping participants with creative skills that help them express their experiences and perspectives on the climate crisis. These new creative competencies will enable them to produce meaningful content that reflects their lived experiences and cultural contexts, which can be used for advocacy and personal expression long after the project concludes:
- shifting the discourse around the climate crisis from disaster-centric and white saviour narratives to more inclusive, empowering stories. By foregrounding the experiences of multicultural communities, the project contributes to a more accurate and diverse representation of the global climate crisis;
- introducing new ethical frameworks for understanding and addressing the climate crisis. These frameworks challenge harmful narratives and encourage more thoughtful, responsible approaches to climate justice.

- gaining knowledge about diverse coping and resilience strategies that help to improve the mental health and well-being of individuals dealing with climate anxiety and/or trauma;
- to collaboratively create new frameworks and tools that help multicultural communities worldwide process and cope with complex emotions related to the climate crisis;
- by integrating practices such as Ecological Identity Map Workshops and Social Dreaming Matrices, the project supports participants in processing the psychological impact of the climate crisis. This not only helps in addressing climate-related anxiety but also fosters a sense of agency and emotional resilience in the face of global challenges;
- the collaborative nature of the project—where participants work closely with counselors and social dreaming hosts—offers a supportive environment that prioritizes mental well-being. This is particularly important for those who feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the climate crisis, providing them with coping strategies and a sense of community.

- building long-lasting creative alliances across locations and cultures in order to establish resilient communities that are better equipped to deal with the challenges posed by the climate crisis;
- influencing global conversations and policies by bringing forward the voices and experiences of traditionally marginalized and often unheard communities:
- fostering long-lasting cross-cultural collaborations that go beyond the duration of the project. These collaborations are built on mutual respect, shared goals, and the co-creation of new ethical frameworks, which help to establish stronger, more resilient communities;
- encouraging the development of creative allyships, where participants learn to support one another in amplifying diverse voices and challenging dominant narratives. This process is integral to building solidarity across different communities and movements;
- engaging with international film festivals, academic publications, and public events and thus, influencing global conversations around climate justice. The narratives produced by the project are designed to resonate widely, inspiring change and advocating for more equitable policies;
- the project’s emphasis on social justice and the climate crisis is intended to inform and influence policy discussions, particularly by bringing forward the voices and experiences of traditionally marginalized communities. This can contribute to more inclusive and effective climate policies at both local and global levels.

- to inspire diverse global communities to create new forms of creative expression, new artistic practices that reflect the complexities of the climate crisis;
- to experiment with more embodied, experiential way of making films, which encourages deeper understanding and empathy;
- to discover and co-create new ethical frameworks that incorporate multicultural perspectives on climate crisis into art, mental health and environmental discourse;
- to foster international, interdisciplinary collaborations between different communities, disciplines and sectors (art and therapy);
- to make complex academic discourse on climate crisis more accessible to wider audiences through art;
- to investigate ethical considerations in creative practices. Participants are encouraged to critically engage with how their narratives are constructed and the potential impact these representations can have. This fosters a deeper awareness of power dynamics, privilege, and the responsibilities that come with storytelling;
- by embracing the concept of situated knowledge, the project ensures that creative activities are rooted in the specific contexts and experiences of participants. This approach not only enriches the creative outputs but also encourages participants to reflect on their positionality and the broader implications of their work;
- to inspire the development of new forms of creative expression that are both responsive to the climate crisis and rooted in the cultural contexts of the communities involved. This innovation in artistic practice has the potential to influence the broader arts sector, encouraging more projects that combine creativity with social and environmental activism.

Traumascapes
A survivor-led organisation dedicated to changing the ecosystem of trauma and creating new horizons for survivors. Traumascapes will provide spaces for the delivery of Climate Crisis Workshops.

London College of Communication, University of the Arts London
Project Co-founder and Events Host. The London College of Communication specialises in media-related subjects including film. LCC will host the Introductory session for the project where Call for Participants will be launched.

The Nunnery Gallery, Bow Arts
East-London based not-for-profit, free, contemporary art space that hosts thought-provoking exhibitions and events. The Gallery will provide space for our Filmmaking Workshops.

Down to Earth Yoga Studio
North London's independent yoga studio, which will provide space for our Weekend Dance Workshops.

Herbert Art Gallery & Museum
Based in the heart of Coventry is a museum, art gallery, records archive, learning centre, media studio and creative arts facility. The Gallery will provide space for our Climate Crisis Workshops.

Ludic Rooms
A postdigital arts organisation founded in 2009. We are a non-profit led by a collaborative approach and a passion for creative technology. Ludic Rooms will provide space for Social Dreaming Matrices and Filmmaking Workshops.

Centre for Environmental Justice and Sustainability, Seattle University
Project Co-founder and Host of all Climate Crisis Workshops. Inspiring care for our communities through the research and practice of social, economic and environmental sustainability. A campus-wide, interdisciplinary Center that seeks to inspire and prepare the next generation of leaders and professionals to meet the unprecedented ethical challenge facing us all in the early 21st century: forging a sustainable relationship between humankind and planet Earth and doing so in ways that foster justice within and between societies. The Centre inspires care for our communities through the research and practice of social, economic, and environmental sustainability and seeks to educate and develop leaders for a more just, humane and sustainable world. 

Interbay Cinema Society
Project Funder. ICS granted us one of their Lightpress grants for the scanning16mm films from the Seattle-based Filmmaking Workshops.

Indigenous Peoples Institute, Seattle University
The Host of Social Dreaming Matrices. The Indigenous Peoples Institute creates educational avenues and offers guidance for Native American and Indigenous students like you by forging community on campus. We also partner with tribal communities, educational institutions, and community organizations to benefit both you and the university community as a whole.

Northwest Film Forum
Film center with classic & indie movies, live performances, filmmaking classes & equipment rentals. The Host of Poetry & Filmmaking Workshops. NWFF is a Partner Organisation with Cadence Video Poetry.

Cadence Video Poetry
Together with the Northwest Film Forum, the Festival will host Poetry & Filmmaking Workshops.

Sidewalk
Community-based organisation that specialises in an inclusive approach to creative city and neighborhood building that combines vision of residents, strategy, and artistic ideation to create engaging spaces, programs and experiences that improve communities across metro-Detroit. Sidewalk seeks to improve livability for residents through the promotion of spatial equity and strong social infrastructure. Our emphasis is on public art, cultural programming and deep engagement with community members. We facilitate processes in which residents are empowered to reclaim their spaces and envision their future. Sidewalk will act as a community liaison and a host of Kuc’s Artistic Eco-Residency, which will also contribute funds to the overall project’s budget. It will also host Introductory session and all Climate Crisis Workshops.

The Film Lab
Detroit-based Microcinema that promotes filmmaker collaborations and conversations through screenings and events. Designed as a venue for creative like-minded folks, it serves to both entertain and support community building for our local film industry. The Film Lab will host CAConrad’s Poetry & Performance Workshop.

Department Of Communications, Wayne State University
A public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 24,000 graduate and undergraduate students. The University will host all three Filmmaking Workshops.

Mothlight Microcinema
It is an artist-run, nomadic film series screening experimental and avant-garde, fiction, documentary, and animated film + video in Detroit, Michigan since 2012. The organisation offers screening schedules and program line-ups. It also delivers workshops with local communities. Together with Wayne State, Mothlight Microcinema will deliver Filmmaking Workshops in Detroit.

BULK Space
It’s a community organisation dedicated to supporting Detroit's cultural landscape by actively serving as a dynamic network for artists, curators, and arts enthusiasts. Specializing in uplifting marginalized artists and fostering underrepresented artistic practices, BULK Space collaborates with other organizations to ensure equitable access to resources and opportunities. BULK’s commitment lies in supporting artists' growth and exploration through transformative initiatives, empowering them to make a lasting impact on our communities and beyond. BULK Space will provide a space for various workshops and together with Sidewalk, they will act as an important interlocutor between Creative Lead, Project Lead and the local communities.

Matika Wilbur (USA) (in conversation)
External Speaker (Swinomish and Tulalip, Seattle, USA) and Social Dreaming Matrix co-host. Wilbur will also deliver an artist talk during the R&D phase of the project. She will discuss her experience of the Artist Residency at Climate Pledge Arena, where she co-curated The Salmon People with renowned Puyallup artist Shaun Peterson. Their ground-breaking installation blends Coast Salish illustration into an immersive world that playfully beckons the audience to think of themselves as relatives to the Salmon People. A professional photographer, Wilbur will also attend the Filmmaking Workshops and will assist the Project Lead with recruiting Indigenous audiences to the project's workshops. Wilbur is known for her work in collecting hundreds of contemporary narratives from the breadth of Indian Country all in the pursuit of one goal: To Change The Way We See Native America.

CAConrad (USA) (confirmed)
Workshop Leader (Detroit, USA). Conrad will deliver Performing Eco-Poetry Workshop in Detroit. An established authority in eco-poetry and performance and described as ‘the shamanic cult hero of contemporary queer poetry', their work stems from elaborate ritual writing prompts, ‘Soma(tic) Exercises', which will be explored in this workshop. Conrad has worked with the ancient technologies of poetry and ritual since 1975. In 2005 CA began working with (Soma)tic Poetry Rituals. The poems in CA's latest book AMANDA PARADISE: Resurrect Extinct Vibration (Wave Books, 2021) reach out from a (Soma)tic poetry ritual where CA flooded their body with the field recordings of recently extinct animals. Conrad's body of work will attract participants who are interested in creating more performance-based, embodied films as part of this project. Conrad has exhibited their poems as art objects in places such as Futura Gallery in Prague, Robert Grunenberg Gallery in Berlin, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts in New York City, Tai Kwun Contemporary in Hong Kong and Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art and Batalha Centro de Cinema in Porto, Portugal.

Joanna Zylinska (UK) (confirmed)
External Speaker (London, UK). Zylinska will deliver an artist and writer talk and a brainstorming workshop as part of the R&D phase. Drawing upon Zylinska’s extensive philosophical expertise, we will be invited to rethink the prophecy of the end of humans; we will be encouraged to interrogate the rise in populism around the world and consider a “feminist counterapocalypse" as an alternative that challenges many of the masculinist and technicist solutions to our planetary crises. Together we will ponder a question: If unbridled progress is no longer an option, what kinds of coexistences and collaborations do we create in its aftermath? An invigorating and bold thinker, Zylinska's talk forms a crucial starting point in rethinking how we wish to think of climate crisis as part of this project.

Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe (USA) (in conversation)
Poetry Workshop Leader (Seattle, USA). LaPointe will co-deliver (with Werner-Jatzke) the Poetry Workshop in Seattle. LaPointe is also a crucial connector between the project and the Indigenous communities in Seattle. LaPointe is from the Upper Skagit and Nooksack Indian Tribe. Native to the Pacific Northwest, she draws inspiration from her coastal heritage as well as her life in the city. She writes with a focus on trauma and resilience, ranging topics from PTSD, sexual violence, the work her great grandmother did for the Lushootseed language revitalization. She is also a punk musician who is devoted to exploring her own truth of indigenous identity in the Coast Salish territory. Her autobiography, Red Paint came out in 2022 with Counterpoint.

Laura E. Fischer (UK) (confirmed)
Workshop Lead/Organisation Partner (London, UK). Fischer will introduce - Traumascapes, one of our Organisation Partners. She will also deliver one of the filmmaking workshops in London. Fischer is the Founder and Director of Traumascapes - a London-based organisation that aims to empower trauma survivors through art and community projects, as well as training and research consultancy. Fischer studied arts at Central Saint Martins; mental health sciences at Queen Mary University of London; and traumatic stress at the Justice Resource Institute. She was also awarded Improvement Leader Fellow by NIHR CLAHRC NWL and Imperial College London.

Chelsea Werner-Jatzke (USA) (confirmed)
Poetry Workshop Co-Leader/Partner Organisation (Seattle, USA). Werner-Jatzke will co-deliver Poetry Workshop (with Sasha LaPointe), as part of Cadence Video Poetry Festival, which she co-directs with San and which is also one of our Partner Organisations. Werner-Jatzke is a writer, curator, designer and creative director who has previously worked for Nike and Seattle Art Museum. She specialises in curating experiential art experiences that increase diverse community engagements.

Velar Grant (UK) (confirmed)
Photography Workshop Leader (Coventry, UK). Grant will deliver a photographic workshop in Coventry. Polish-born, London-based, Grant has worked internationally and has won numerous awards for her photojournalism. Having grown up in Podlasie, a marginalized region in Poland, and of Ukrainian-Belarusian minority herself, Grant’s work often depicts ethnic minorities and marginalized communities. Her 2016 photo essay Forgotten Children of Idomeni was awarded first prize at Mobile Photography Award in the USA. She has worked on assignments all over the world covering Maidan Revolution in Ukraine in 2014, Syrian migration in Greece, student protests in United Kingdom, ecological issues in Cambodia and many more. Her work's been published in The Guardian, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, The Times, The Telegraph, National Geographic, International Street Photographer and other prestigious publications. Her works was exhibited in Darkroom Gallery, Vermont (USA), 6×6 Centre for Photography in Limassol, (Cyprus) and MPA 2016 exhibition in Milan (Italy). Velar specializes on long-form documentary human interest projects, news and feature stories, both domestic and international and is currently a contract photographer with ZUMA Press and licensed member of National Union of Journalists (UK). Grant's attention to multiculturalism and her unique way of working with participants is an asset to this project.

Caryn Cline (USA) (confirmed)
Workshop Leader/Partner Organisation (Seattle, USA). Cline will deliver a 16mm Training Workshop in Seattle and she will also be working with Kuc on developing the 16mm films. Cline is a Seattle-based 16mm filmmaker and community activist, who also works runs the Interbay Cinema Society, which administers Lightpress grants to artists. She also runs the Engauge Experimental Film Festival, where Kuc's work has shown before. ICS is one of our Partner Organisations which also granted us one of their Lightpress grants for the scanning 16mm films from the workshops. Kuc was one of the 2022 recipients of this grant. 

Giizhigad Bieber (USA) (in conversation)
Social Dreaming Matrix Host and a Filmmaking Workshop Co-Leader (Detroit, USA). Bieber will be trained by Manley to deliver Social Dreaming Matrices in Detroit. With Kuc, she will co-deliver one of the Filmmaking Workshops in Detroit. Beiber is an Anishinaabe artist, storyteller, filmmaker & cultural producer based in Detroit. Her work includes moving image, beadwork and sculpture. Bieber is an important representative of the new generation of filmmakers in Detroit and she is crucial to teh Project Lead's work on finding appropriate participants for the workshops.

Nancy Kessler (USA) (confirmed)
Climate Crisis Workshop Leader (Seattle, USA). Kessler will deliver some of the climate crisis-related workshops in Seattle. Kessler is a Seattle-based counselor, who specialises in climate crisis anxiety. She is also a member of 350 Seattle - a grassroots multicultural climate justice group who is also one of our target audiences.

Yolanda Cieters (USA) (confirmed)
External Speaker/Partner Organisation/Panel Discussant (Seattle, USA). Cieters will introduce Centre for Environment Justice and Sustaiability at Seattle University - one of our Partner Organisations, which she currently directs. In her role se collaborates with faculty, staff, students, and external stakeholders to plan, assess, and improve SU’s climate action and sustainability performance. Previously, Cieters worked at the World Affairs Council and Pacific Village Institute promoting international exchange for professionals and developing cross-cultural and global issues curriculum for educators. She also has background in documentary production: she assisted in the production of feature-length documentaries on topics such as Fair Trade and The Ecological Footprint. She edited over forty short films for Longhouse Media, a non-profit organization seeking to catalyze Indigenous people and communities to use media as a tool for self-expression, cultural preservation, and social change. Cieters' support and her knowlede of diverse communities in Seattle is of an invaluable asset to this project.

Jané MacKenzie (UK) (confirmed)
External Speaker/Workshop Co-Leader (London, UK). With Kuc, MacKenzie will co-lead one of the Filmmaking Workshops in London. MacKenzie is an artist and neurodiversity activist who is a crucial link between the project and London's neurodiverse art scene. MacKenzie has been active in various community projects in London, from youth projects in Brixton to most recently being a team member of Hart Club - an art studio and gallery championing neurodiversity in the arts. MacKenzie's own well-acclaimed artistic project, E-numbers, is a series of neuroqueer night events that bring together creatives to explore and affirm what it means to be neurodivergent. Kuc and MacKenzie met in 2021 at Hart Club - a London-based organisation that champions neurodiversity in the arts. Kuc delivered a series of photographic workshops there, which led to Kuc and MacKenzie co-curating the successful Spectrum of the Everyday exhibition (funded by the Arts Council).

Ryan Myers-Johnson (USA) (confirmed)
External Speaker/Partner Organisation (Detroit, USA). Myers-Johnson is the Director & Founder of Sidewalk. She is also a curator of place-based performance and installation art, specializing in community engagement. Ryan has extensive experience in event planning, arts administration, management and leadership, stemming from her many years working as production manager in the film industry and company manager in dance production. Previously she worked as Assistant Director of Kresge Arts in Detroit where she worked extensively in outreach, promotion and skill building for metro-Detroit artists.

Shanna Maurizi (USA) (confirmed)
Filmmaking Workshop Co-lead/Partner Organization (Detroit, USA). Maurizi will deliver one of the Filmmaking Workshops in Detroit. She will also assist Kuc in developing the film stock in Detroit. Maurizi, together with Yezbick and Kuc, is a member of Mothlight Microcinema - one of our Partner Organisations. Maurizi is an artist whose work spans photography, sculpture, expanded cinema and film. She is also a well-regarded film colourist and she has been an important grassroots arts organizer and arts activist in Detroit and NYC.

Tamzin Jade (UK) (confirmed)
A Black Queer Yoga Teacher and Dance Artist based in London, Tamzin is a graduate from London Contemporary Dance School (2016). Tamzin interweaves movement, intuitive and indigenous wisdom into whole being experiences. She facilitates compassionate, inquisitive and playful explorations as a resource for joy and liberation. Together with Jon Caruana, Tamzin will deliver Weekend Dance Workshops at Down to Earth Yoga Studio in London.

Laima Leyton (UK/Brasil) (confirmed)
Workshop Leader (Coventry, UK) / Sound Contributor (London, UK). Leyton will deliver a Sound & Performance Workshop in Coventry. She is also one of the contributing musicians to the film's soundtrack. London-based but heavily rooted in the São Paulo contemporary art scene, Laima's credentials in the world of music are firmly established as one-half of Mixhell alongside her husband Iggor Cavalera (Sepultura, Cavalera Conspiracy) and for her work with Soulwax. With her debut album 'Home' released in 2019 via DEEWEE and The Vinyl Factory, the producer, musician, activist, artist, mother and teacher united her multifaceted talents. The Guardian heralded this as "Domestic Disco". Most recently, Leyton composed a response to 'On Hannah Arendt: Eight Proposals for Exhibition', and for each of the eight chapters of Arendt's book, 'Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought' at Richard Saltoun Gallery in Mayfair. Titled collectively as Infinite Past, Infinite Future and Now, the works, each composed of a sonic piece and a video, engage with themes of time, culture, truth and spirituality. Leyton was selected as Participation Resident Artist at London's Gasworks Gallery, they together formed InnerSwell, an art duo incorporating sound, rooted in Pauline Olivero's pedagogy of 'Deep Listening'. She also took part in Cucosonic (an IPoW project) raising awareness about the biodiversity of the Colombian Rainforest, releasing an album that included musicians Onsulade, Brian Eno, and Martin Ware. With her work as a teacher and activist, Leyton works closely with In Place of War who empower people in places of conflict and crisis to make music, arts and culture as a form of survival. With Ipow she has taught music production in Uganda, Tanzania and Palestine and from there went on to help develop GRRRL with women from Ghana, Bangladesh, Brazil, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and the UK.

Julia Yezbick (USA) (confirmed)
External Speaker/Workshop Leader (Detroit)/Partnering Organisation. A filmmaker, artist, and anthropologist. She received her PhD in Media Anthropology and Critical Media Practice from Harvard University and an MA in Visual Anthropology from the University of Manchester. Yezbick's creative practice is primarily one of experimental nonfiction addressing topics of labor, movement and the body, feminism, and social commentary on issues ranging from ethnicity and gender to housing and urban transformations. Her work uses film, video, audio, writing, performance, and installation, and has been exhibited at various international festivals and venues including the Berlin International Film Festival, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the New York Library for Performing Arts, Station Arts Space (Beirut), the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Broad Underground Film series (Lansing), the AgX Film Collective (Boston), and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit. In 2012 she co-founded and continues to direct Mothlight Microcinema, a small nomadic film series that has been screening experimental film and video. She was a 2018 Kresge Artist Fellow for film, and is the Founder and Executive Editor of Sensate: a journal for experiments in critical media practice. Additionally she has served on the board for Media City Film Festival (Windsor), and has programmed two special programs for the Ann Arbor Film Festival.

Iggor Cavalera (UK/Brasil) (confirmed)
Sound Contributor (London, UK). Iggor Cavalera is best known for his role as the drummer in the Brazilian metal band Sepultura. His ability to project emotions and evoke thought through his percussive talents made him accumulate many accolades, including many Best Drummer accolades and selling over 10 million records. Iggor's incredible ability to project emotion and evoke thought through his percussive talents has been given an outlet in many forms through bands such as Sepultura, Cavalera Conspiracy, Mixhell, Petbrick, and Soulwax.

Aileen Ye (UK) (confirmed)
Workshop Leader (London/Coventry UK). Ye will deliver 16mm Filmmaking Workshops in London and Coventry. Based between London and Amsterdam, Ye is an award-winning Irish-Chinese filmmaker from Dublin. Her primary medium is 16mm film as she focuses on contemporary subcultures and diasporic narratives. Ye's work Her work has been shown at BAFTA and BIFA qualifying festivals and international spaces including the BFI, Barbican Centre, NOWNESS Asia, Michigan Theatre, LUX, and more. Her expertise in decolonising the aesthetics of moving-imagery and autoethnographic cinema is of a great asset to this workshop.

Raven Chacon (USA) (in conversation)
Sound Contributor (Seattle/NYC, USA). Raven Chacon is a composer, performer and installation artist from Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation. Chacon has exhibited, performed at LACMA, The Renaissance Society, San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, REDCAT, Vancouver Art Gallery, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Borealis Festival, SITE Santa Fe, Chaco Canyon, Ende Tymes Festival, The Kennedy Center and Café Oto, London. As a member of Postcommodity from 2009-2018, he co-created artworks presented at the Whitney Biennial, documenta 14, Carnegie International 57, as well as the 2-mile long land art installation Repellent Fence. Chacon has appeared on more than eighty releases on various national and international labels. In 2022, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his composition Voiceless Mass. His 2020 Manifest Destiny opera Sweet Land, co-composed with Du Yun, received critical acclaim from The LA Times, The New York Times, and The New Yorker, and was named 2021 Opera of the Year by the Music Critics Association of North America. Since 2004, he has mentored over 300 high school Native composers in the writing of new string quartets for the Native American Composer Apprenticeship Project (NACAP). Chacon is the recipient of the United States Artists fellowship in Music, The Creative Capital award in Visual Arts, The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation artist fellowship, the American Academy’s Berlin Prize for Music Composition, the Bemis Center’s Ree Kaneko Award, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award (2022), the Pew Fellow-in-Residence (2022), and is a 2023 MacArthur Fellow. His solo artworks are in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum and National Museum of the American Indian, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Getty Research Institute, the University of New Mexico Art Museum, and various private collections.

Chris Peters (USA) (confirmed)
Film and Installation Sound Composer (Detroit, USA). Film and Installation Sound Composer (Detroit, USA). Film and Installation Sound Composer (Detroit, USA). Peters will oversee the music composition and production, for both the film and the installation. Deeply rooted in Detroit art and music scene, Peters has all the necessary contacts. His work spans from collaborations with independent hip-hop producers Quelle Chris and Apollo Brown to popular acts like Black Eyed Peas and Girls Aloud as well as more avant-garde experiments in sound arts.