and project manager. He combines a background in public health and international development with a lifelong passion for the arts. His academic training includes a BSc in Biochemistry , an MSc in Environmental Engineering, and a PhD in Public Health. He is also a practicing musician and events manager.

He is particularly intrigued by the role of the arts and culture in the wider world, including how they can help rebalance our collective attention, and join efforts to address developmental, philosophical, and social concerns. Working as an interdisciplinary consultant, he has supported creative reflections around water and peace in the Sahel; explored cultural responses to humanitarian challenges; and helped convene, curate, and coordinate efforts in the growing international arts and health field. He had the honour of contributing to IMPACT’s Invite/Affirm/Evoke/Unleash report on how artistic and cultural processes can address complex challenges, and will be co-authoring an upcoming Lancet article on Arts and Health.

screenwriter. She is the founder of Les Cultur’elles, an organization that promotes women in arts and culture. Amina Seck is the founder of the Women’s Book Fair in Dakar.

in Mediation and Conflict Transformation.  For the last 20 years she has been working in conflict transformation and peacebuilding. She is a researcher, a practitioner and a trainer and has worked with the public and private sector and with different community sectors on dialogue, participation and collaborative advocacy processes for social change. She is director of the Fundación Cambio Democrático in Argentina, member of Partners Network,  and also consultant for the UNDP on various initiatives in the LaTAM region related to participation, peacebuilding programs, networking for change. In the last years she has being focused on the complexity of conflict transformation in environmental issues and their connection with the human rights of indigenous people. She has participated in IMPACT as practitioner, facilitator and during 2022 served as member of the transitional board. 

world with experience and journeys in the private sector, public administration, private-public institutions. A social entrepreneur committed to a core life’s mission as co-founder of El Sistema Greece, Anis believes in community arts projects as a tool for social inclusion.

Aside from his role at El Sistema Greece, he also is the Managing Director of the Community Arts Network (CAN). CAN aims to enable, engage and empower individuals, organizations and communities through arts and unlikely alliances and works on advocacy for the role of Arts in responding to our current global challenges.

tasks, being in charge of national competitive funds linked to cooperation internationally, being responsible for the Cultural Fund of the Embassy Switzerland in Bolivia for 5 years. She has directed and coordinated art projects linked to social development and Human Rights mainly in rural municipalities and intermediate cities throughout the country; she’s a founding member of the Illa Organization developing artistic projects and processes aimed at social innovation, intercultural dialogue and cultural research. She is co-author of the Creative Guide for LanzArte, a tool to promote youth participation processes from the artistic platform, addressing issues of human rights, citizenship and democracy. She has been invited several times as a jury for the evaluation of cultural projects in national and municipal calls for the promotion of culture, responsible for Cultural Programming at the La Paz International Book Fair and was a collaborator in the Willaqniykuna bulletin of the Bolivian Studies Association (AEB) and Rascacielos magazine.

historian and a scholar/practitioner devoted to strengthening the contributions of arts and culture to the creative transformation of violent conflict. Currently, she is a Senior Fellow with IMPACT, Inc., and affiliate of the Program in Peacebuilding and the Arts at Brandeis University. She was a co-editor of the Acting Together anthologies, and a co-creator of the accompanying film and toolkit. She was the lead author on IMPACT’s report Invite | Affirm | Evoke | Unleash: How artistic and cultural processes transform complex challenges. She supported the African-American cultural worker, educator and musician, Jane Wilburn Sapp, to create her book Let’s Make a Better World: Stories and Songs of Jane Sapp, and has written extensively on the aesthetic and ethical dimensions of peacebuilding. Cindy has worked as a coexistence facilitator with communities in the US, Middle East, Central America and Sri Lanka, and is focusing now on strengthening the contributions of arts and culture to movements opposing rising authoritarianism, both in the US and globally. She currently lives in Wilmington, North Carolina with her wife Ann and their beloved cat, Eleanor Roosevelt (Ella).

Association (PETA) at age 13 and has since devoted her life to theater as a performer, teacher, organizer, director, and playwright. Dessa spent many years with the PETA, and worked with UP Repertory, Ma-Yi Theater in New York City, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and Silliman University. She finished AB Economics at the University of the Philippines and her master’s in International Relations at the New School for Social Research as a Fulbright scholar, and has worked at integrating theater in education, advocacy and development work and community building. She has conducted arts and peacebuilding trainings for the Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute and as well as other workshops all over the Philippines as well as parts of Asia, Europe, Africa and North America. Living in Dumaguete, she co-creates with members of her co-founded Youth Advocates Through Theater Arts (YATTA). Dessa has served as Head of the Committee on Dramatic Arts of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and is currently a faculty member at Silliman University College of Performing and Visual Arts. She is the Vice President of the Women Playwrights International – Philippines.

director, activist, writer and lecturer. She co-

founded DAH Theater and has been its leading director for over thirty years. She was the Artistic Director for theater festivals, was the president of the Association of the

Independent Theaters and president or member of several boards. Being involved with several peace building initiatives and collaborating with feminists – activists groups she also serves as a member of the Board at IMPACT – a network of arts and conflict transformation.

She has devised and directed theater shows with her company and toured them nationally and internationally as well as directed the work with other companies all over the world.

She is a well-known lecturer and has taught at prestigious Universities, writes articles and essays about theater. She is the recipient of prestigious fellowships and awards (Fulbright, Arts Link, Helena Vaz de Silva).

Evaluation and Learning at the Prince Claus Fund, where she is responsible for the collecting and analysing of information on the impact of the Fund. She is particularly focused on developing collaborative ME&L practices that provide insight into the needs of practitioners working at the intersection of arts and societal change based on the relationships between the organisation and its partners, and on critical reflection on the position and power of funding bodies in society. Laura began her career at the Prince Claus Fund in 2017 as a researcher, and was a core member of the working group for the Forces of Art project. During this time she also completed a master’s degree in Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. Laura has co-developed IMPACT’s theory of change on Advocacy for arts, culture and conflict transformation.

policy and seeks to understand and influence how artists create social change and open dialogue in conflict zones and divided societies . Recent publications include “Buffer Fringe Festival (BFF) 2020: An Artist-Based Conflict Transformation Festival on the Fringes” (2023), co-written with Meropi Moiseos; ‘Imagined Communities: Staging Shared Society in Israel’, chapter with Sinai Peter in “Activist Pedagogy and Shared Education in Divided Societies” (2022); and “But Abu Ibrahim, We’re Family!” (2017), his critical study on Jewish-Palestinian theatre cooperation. Lee previously served as the Tel Aviv-based associate of Brandeis University’s International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life and as a research fellow at the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research, Tel Aviv University. Lee served as executive director, America-Israel Cultural Foundation, and director of programs, Abraham Initiatives, an organization promoting shared society and equality between Jewish and Palestinian citizens in Israel. “Prisoner of Zion”, Lee’s performance piece with Nadav Bossem, premiered at the Akko International Fringe Theatre Festival in October 2023 and will be performed in repertory at the TMUNA Theatre in Tel Aviv from February 2023.

the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office (EPLO). Since 2017, he has been coordinating EPLO’s activities on conflict sensitivity and on the humanitarian-development-peace nexus. He also coordinates EPLO’s work on the linkages between the climate crisis and peace and conflict issues, on cultural heritage, and on EU-Africa relations. Prior to joining EPLO, Lorenzo worked as a Research Fellow for the Fund for Scientific Research – FNRS (F.R.S.-FNRS), focusing on the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy as well as on EU policies and initiatives involving the linking of security and development objectives.

Partnerships, Michael Orlove provides direction concerning the National Endowment for the Arts funding and other assistance to the 56 state and jurisdictional arts agencies, the six regional arts agencies, and local arts agencies across the country. Additionally, Orlove manages the agency’s international activities. He was the Agency’s director of Artist Communities and Presenting & Multidisciplinary Works from 2012 to 2019.

Michael has previously been senior program director for the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, and director of music programming in Millennium Park.  As a testament to his international expertise, Orlove was named one of the ‘Seven Samurai’ at the prestigious WOMEX (World Music Expo) 2009 Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark and, in 2018, was given the inaugural GlobalFEST ‘Impact Award’ for outstanding commitment to the world music field.  He was recently selected for the DeVos Global Arts Management Fellowship (2018-2020).

He has a BA in history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MA in performing arts management from Columbia College Chicago.

College of Performing and Visual Arts. She completed her units in Masters of Arts in Social and Community Psychology at the same university. Afterward, she joined the faculty and became an active member and artist-teacher of the Youth Advocates Through Theater Arts. Currently, she serves as the Executive Director of the Gender Watch Against Violence and Exploitation, an NGO dedicated to ending all forms of gender-based violence in the community. Additionally, she is a Board member of the Break the Silence National network and a council member of the National Anti-Poverty Commission under the women’s sector.

strategies and participatory arts-based approaches with grassroots communities. After realizing there was a general lack of understanding of what non-violence mobilization in the recent violent protests in Kenya, he mobilized fellow civic activists to respond to police brutality by investing into long-term community non-violent mobilization. The belief is grounded in a quest to improve skills that enhance peaceful means of agitating for change. Through civic engagement with Kenya Bora Tuitakayo, a national social change movement, he held a training workshop in Kisumu town, a city mostly affected by political violence and police brutality. Ombok holds an MA International Conflict Management and has worked as a human rights defender in Kenya for over 25 years.

Township. She is Associate Professor Emeritus, Peace and Conflict Studies at Juniata College. Polly earned her PhD at Australia’s University of Queensland where her research focused on conflict transformation between Aboriginal and non-Indigenous Australians. Polly is co-editor, along with Dr. Cynthia Cohen and Prof. Roberto Varea, of the two-volume “Acting Together: Performance and the Creative Transformation of Conflict”. She also contributed to the documentary “Acting Together on the World Stage,” and is co-author of the accompanying toolkit. Polly serves as Chair of the Indigenous Education Institute whose work supports ethical collaboration with Indigenous peoples and Western scientists supporting the revitalization of Indigenous knowledge systems. She is also a director of the Peace and Conflict Studies Institute of Australia.

Manager, at the British Council. She believes in the value of arts and culture to connect across differences and imagine a brighter future. For the British Council, Rosanna has co-developed programmes around the world on conflict transformation, social inclusion, cultural diversity, and climate action. She is the author of “The Missing Pillar: Culture’s contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (2020)” and “Cultural Heritage for Inclusive Growth (2018)”. Rosanna works closely with UNESCO, the EU National Institutes of Culture – EUNIC, and Development Agencies as well as cultural organisations and local actors around the world. 

Rosanna joined the IMPACT Board in 2022, and was appointed as part-time Senior Advocacy Manager in September 2023. She has previously worked for the European Commission (Belgium), European University Institute (Italy), European Court of Human Rights (France) and Manchester Metropolitan University (UK).

and health expertise, she is a respected singer, songwriter, and Arts and Culture Program’s Creator. Being a current student at the Global Music Academy,          she already has cofounded Salute   Yal              Bannot, Sudan’s first all female band, and became the Arabs Got Talent shows’ first Sudanese act to reach the semi finals. She’s a Certified Community Music Leader by Netherland’s Musicians Without              Boarders and a Cultural Projects Manager by Berlin’s Goethe Institute. She also a Certified “Ready Actor” by the Theater Inventive Area. As well as joining  the Goethe MENA Gender’s Network 2017; she was chosen as the program manager to found “Yalla!Kahrtoum” Institute for Arts and Culture 2017; and as a representative of Sudan’s Artivism Projects by the British Council in the EDD 2016, and “UnCommon Ground” confrence 2018. Sarra also recently joined   AWE, Artist With Elbows, a collaborating network of social artists from around the globe, and was the Yuri of their Hope Street project. She is proud to have coauthored in “Sudan  Retold, An Art Book about the Future and History of Sudan; and to have sung as an African Voice to Countries’ and NGOs’ presidents including the Queen Of the Belgians.  Sarra’s latest collaboration as a singer and supporting Songwriter is Sawa Sawa album, a multiartistic project that is said to “represents a historic collaboration and fusion of Sudanese and pan-African sounds, stories and art.”

bachelor’s degree in theater from the Faculty of Fine Arts.  Currently associated with “Artists with Elbows” focusing on creating a connection and space for artistic/ cultural exchange between artists, communities and institutions, she’s all about integrating art and theater techniques into projects aimed at catalyzing social change and promoting peace.

As a theater practitioner, Seba has collaborated with various organizations, contributing to the design and development of tools and projects in mental health, psychosocial support, and education. Using theater as an interactive tool, she actively engages in dialogue with diverse communities and dedicates her efforts to empowering young people, a key aspect of her work.

What sets Seba apart is her commitment to unraveling the connection between the arts and the thought systems shaping the collective uncertainties in cities with unclear futures. Her ongoing artistic project, “Uncertainty,” explores this relationship. Currently, she’s deep into her studies, focusing on arts, international collaboration, and peace-building in the CAS program at Zurich University of Arts.

of artists in Yerevan, Armenia. She grew

up in the studio of her father, a sculptor and painter, and by the time she was six decided to

study music and become a pianist. In 2010 she graduated from Tchaikovsky Specialized

Secondary Music School and in 2014, she graduated from the Komitas State Conservatory of

Yerevan with a Bachelor’s in Piano. She has been performing classical, academic, contemporary, and experimental collaborative

work as a soloist, a part of chamber ensembles, and an accompanist in Armenia, the US,

Canada and Europe. Since 2017 she has been playing free improvisations and became a part of the Contemporary Sound Orchestra of Yerevan (Pots and Drums).

In September of 2020 the Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) war began. When her family stopped hearing from her younger brother who was fighting on the front lines, she picked up her phone camera and began filming. This resulted in her first film, 1489.

Shoghakat has been awarded the Armenian Prime Minister’s Award (which she refused because she believes film should not have any political connections) in 2021; as well as the Work in Progress Grand Prix during the Golden Apricot Film Festival in 2022.

Her first feature documentary film, ‘1489,’ won Best Film Award and FIPRESCI Award at IDFA 2023 in an International Competition.

lecturer, and acting teacher from Haifa, Israel. Since 1980, in over a dozen shared Jewish-Palestinian theatre productions, his roles have spanned from stage director, artistic director of a public repetory theatre, actor, and writer in both fringe and mainstream theatres . Sinai also directed five theatre productions in Washington D.C. between 2008-2016. He is a veteran peace and shared society activist who during the early days of the current war in Israel-Palestine, initiated and continues to spearhead a Palestinian-Jewish artists’ solidarity group.

the Arts, and Social Transformation, Assistant Director of Global Community Engagement at the Samuels Center for Community Partnerships and Civic Transformation, and Director of the Program in Peacebuilding and the Arts, all at Brandeis University (USA). She is a curator, filmmaker, researcher, writer and educator (PhD in cultural anthropology, Cornell University), whose work in both community and academic settings focuses on the arts in relation to war, genocide, displacement, conflict transformation, climate justice, and gender concerns. Her documentary film Because of the War, about superstar refugee performing artists, received the 2018 Elli Köngäs-Maranda Prize for “superior work on women’s traditional, vernacular, or local culture and/or feminist theory and folklore.” The latest of her many publications include “Freedom and the Archive,” co-authored with Germaine Ingram, in Art and Human Rights, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023; “Absence/Presence/Silence/Noise,” in Dancing Transnational Feminisms, University of Washington Press, 2021; “A Cambodian Dancer in a Displaced Persons’ Camp.” Music & Minorities Vol 1, 2021; “Imagining Alternatives: Cambodia, Accountability and Compassion,” in Coexistence in the Aftermath of Mass Violence, University of Michigan Press, 2020; and “Embodying the Pain and Cruelty of Others,” International Journal of Transitional Justice, March 2020.

on creating links between culture, art and peacebuilding. She co-founded Imagining Peace, a platform that investigates how arts and cultural practices implemented by grassroot initiatives contribute to peacebuilding efforts in their local conflict and post-conflict communities. She worked on projects related to cultural cooperation and reconciliation between Kosovo and Serbia. Her work is focused on advocacy for recognition and involvement of arts in peacebuilding efforts, through evidence-based research and policy development.