New LADA Staff Members

LADA is sad to say goodbye to Alex Eisenberg who has been LADA’s Digital Programmes Manager for seven years and is leaving to pursue freelance projects, to Amy Poole who was LADA’s first-ever Marketing Co-ordinator and who has left to take up a new role at Guildhall, and to CJ Mitchell, LADA’s Finance and Development Director who has moved to Kent where he is developing new projects. All three have made immeasurable differences to LADA’s work and will be much missed.

We are, however, delighted to announce the appointment of three new staff members.

Megan Vaughan will be responsible for LADA’s Finance and Management, Rosaleigh Harvey-Otway will be responsible for Digital Projects and Resource, and Natalia Damigou-Papoti will be responsible for Communications and PR.

All three will join the organisation in January 2020.

Megan Vaughan has worked in arts administration since 2006, where she began her career at Manchester Opera House. Since then, she has worked in a variety of project and general management roles with Metro-Boulot-Dodo, Fierce Festival, Company of Angels, Chris Goode & Company, and LADA, where she was Programmes Manager from 2016-2018. Megan rejoins LADA after 2 years working on a book project and PhD thesis, both focused on changing cultures and practices of online theatre criticism.

I am delighted to be rejoining the team at LADA, an organisation I have already had the honour of supporting as Programmes Manager. Having long admired CJ Mitchell for his outstanding financial expertise and super-cool management style, I know I have big shoes to fill, but I’m definitely going to relish that challenge, and the opportunity to continue contributing to this vital organisation. Roll on January!

Rosaleigh Harvey-Otway is a visual artist working across video, photography, performance, drawing and critical theory. Her research is grounded in psychogeography, ecology and materialist feminism, and her practice broadly examines reciprocal dialogues between the body and space. She is part of numerous artist collaborations, and her practice is also inclusive of curatorial projects and running creative workshops. She has exhibited internationally and undertaken residencies with organisations such as Artscape Toronto and Tate Modern.  She has worked as a studio manager, producer and assistant within photography, and has also developed an interest in programming, and works as a freelance developer and teacher of coding to young people.

I am really excited to become a part of the LADA team, and to contribute to an organisation which I have long admired for its work supporting and championing diverse and underrepresented artists. I am really enthusiastic about Live Art as a method of working and its incredible history of resistance and subversion within art-making and the public sphere. I am thrilled to begin working for an organisation which has collectivism and collaboration at its core, ideologies which are not only mirrored in the artwork LADA supports and facilitates, but could shine a light on new and alternative working models.

Natalia Damigou-Papoti is the co-founder and press officer of UNCENSORED Festival which explored pornography at the intersection of art and activism, and reflected on the existing and forthcoming legislation regarding sexually explicit content in the UK. Natalia has been working as a press professional for Live Art events and is also a member of CUNTemporary/Arts Feminism Queer. Her background is in journalism and cultural criticism, having collaborated with a variety of Greek media since 2012. As an independent writer, she writes mainly about pop culture, sexuality, gender issues, desire and feminist politics. She has a BA in Journalism from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and an MA in Gender Studies from Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences.

 I am thrilled to become a member of the team of magnificent individuals working at the Live Art Development Agency and to support artists exploring in such bold, ground-breaking and complex ways some of the most crucial political issues of today.