Our Team

LADA Staff

Mary Osborn │ Director

Before joining LADA as Director in 2024, Mary Osborn (she/her) built a reputation for bold projects and programmes as a producer and curator. As Senior Creative Development Producer at Battersea Arts Centre, she shaped BAC’s programme of commissions and artist development programmes. Mary has worked closely with artists on significant projects such as Cade & MacAskill’s ‘The Making of Pinocchio’, Ama Josephine Budge’s ‘The Apocalypse Reading Room’, and the vacuum cleaner’s ‘Madlove Takeover’. Mary co-led radical performance collective Steakhouse Live, and has a long-standing collaboration with Danish curator Emma Møller (osborn&møller). Mary is currently a Trustee at Fierce, and on the Buzzcut Advisory Board.

Portrait of a white woman in her 30s looking at the camera. She's wearing a black shirt, has curly hair with bleached ends and a short fringe, wears bright red lipstick, light brown glasses, and a gold watch. She has a small tattoo on her wrist.

Image Christa Holka Photography

Dr R. Justin Hunt │ Interim Deputy Director

With 20+ years’ experience, Justin (he/him) supports artists and organisations as an artist, curator and educator. His journey began in dance and education, before moving into producing and arts management. Justin has produced off-Broadway productions and festivals and toured internationally as his drag alter-ego Dr Sharon Husbands. He founded I’m With You, Naked Boys Reading and Queer Extension. As an academic, Justin has published widely on queerness and performance. He was an associate researcher on Performance Matters (AHRC) and is Research Fellow for Shifting Power (UKRI).

Image Christa Holka Photography

Willy Amott │ Operations & Public Programmes Manager

Willy Amott (they/he) is a producer, project manager and curator. They joined LADA in October 2023. In their freelance practice they have worked across DIY drag cabarets, national artist development schemes, worldwide funding experiments, immersive experiential events, festival sets, club nights and community arts activities. They are interested in cultural ‘brows’, play, how audiences affect performance, and how access-led approaches can shape new creative forms.

Smiling white person wearing a brown baseball cap and a black sweater with a striped V-neck, seated indoors with a softly blurred background.

Lara Angelina │ Project Assistant

Lara Angelina (5’8”) is a strange little lady with huge biceps and a tiny fringe. In her live art and performance practice, she explores the raw and rough parts of the human condition, often utilising audience affect and abjection to communicate personal experience. Currently in her final year of Experimental Arts and Performance at Central School of Speech and Drama, she has an interest in curating and producing live art events, festivals, and spreading the live art plague.

A close-up portrait of a white person with dark hair and short bangs, wearing a nose ring and earrings, looking directly at the camera against a green background. They are dressed in a light-colored top with ruffled details.

Natalia Damigou-Papoti │ Communications Manager

Natalia Damigou-Papoti (she/her) joined LADA in 2019. She is a writer and cultural worker, invested in feminist and queer frameworks and modes of collaboration. She was a core member of CUNTemporary/Arts Feminism Queer and co-organised UNCENSORED Festival that explored pornography at the intersection of art and activism. Her practice as an independent programmer is research-led and rooted in non-institutional initiatives and a critical understanding of culture. Her background is in journalism and cultural criticism, writing mainly about gender, feminist politics and pop culture.

Natalia Damigou-Papoti, is a white female with shoulder length blonde hair. Natalia is stood wearing a black top, she has her arms crossed and is looking thoughtfully smiling out of a window on a sunny day

Jo Hughes (Blackdot) │ Accounts Manager

Blackdot is a bookkeeping and accounts management company specialising in the UK arts sector. Founded in 2008 by Jo Hughes, Blackdot has worked with Live Art Development Agency for over a decade, developing a strong understanding of its work and context. Jo’s background in arts administration informs the way Blackdot works, with a practical understanding of the sector. Blackdot is a small team of qualified bookkeepers, registered with the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers, and committed to supporting the work of arts organisations through long-term working relationships.

kane stonestreet │ Bookshop & Communications Co-Ordinator

kane stonestreet (they/he) re-joined LADA June 2024, having originally been a part of the team as an intern back in 2019. They have been active in Live Art for the past seven years, acting as an artist, collaborator, co-conspirator and producer. Their performance practice centres around transness and time, whilst their curation is preoccupied with dyke erotics and censorship. They hold a BA(Hons) in Sculpture and Environmental Art from Glasgow School of Art and studied Live Art (MA) at Queen Mary University of London.

A photo of kane stonestreet in front of a wall with graffities. They're wearing an oversized black bomber jacket and a light purple baseball hat and look at the camera

Dunja van der Velde │ Project Assistant

Dunja van der Velde (she/ her) is a Dutch sound practitioner, producer and movement explorer. She is mainly found up in the air as a flying trapeze and pole artist. Her practice explores sound as a tool to access liminal spaces and establish close interactions between past, present and future through Live sound Performance. Currently in her final year of experimental arts and performance at Central School of Speech and Drama, she loves curation, producing of Live Art events and collaboration.

Smiling white young woman with long blonde hair sitting in an outdoor venue, wearing a black sleeveless top, with rows of seats and a crowd behind her under a clear sky.

Lex Correia │ Placement

Lex Correia (they/them) is currently a student at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York, USA. They are spending their semester abroad in London. At Ithaca, they are studying for a BFA in Film, Photography, and Visual Arts, with a secondary focus on Business Administration. Outside of work, they will be spending their time seeing live music and exploring, as it is their first time in Europe.

A seated studio portrait of a person with shoulder-length red hair, wearing a burgundy hoodie, patterned top, and black jeans. They sit casually on a chair against a gray backdrop, with one leg bent and an arm resting on their knee.

Board of Trustees

Robin Deacon (Co-Chair)

Robin Deacon (he/him) is an artist, writer, educator and curator. His performances, lectures and videos have been presented at conferences and festivals in the UK and internationally, and his writings on the practice and ethics of performance reenactment and documentation have been published by Routledge, NYU Press and Intellect Live. Robin was Professor and Chair of Performance at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for a decade, and since 2021 has been the Artistic Director and CEO of SPILL Festival.

Image Jon Wright

Cat Sheridan (Co-Chair)

Cat Sheridan (she/her) is a disabled queer producer and programmer. As Senior Producer at Unlimited, she leads national and international commissioning, partnerships and strategy across 38 countries. She is also Managing Director of an award-winning queer therapy service. Having built a career over more than a decade as a senior leader and creative producer across Scotland, Cat is committed to building bold, equitable programmes that reimagine who gets to create, lead and thrive in the cultural sector.

Image Sam Wrighter

Gill Lloyd (Treasurer)

Gill Lloyd (she/her) was the Co-Director of Artsadmin for 33 years until she retired in 2018, having spearheaded the organisation’s £6 million building purchase and renovation among other initiatives. Currently she is Chair of People Show, Co-Chair of Madlove and a Trustee of Hay2Timbuktu twinning charity. Gill has specialist knowledge and extensive interest in Southern African arts and culture and has undertaken a lot of South African human rights campaigning activity on behalf of artists working alongside veteran politician Helen Suzman, both pre and post apartheid.

Gill with Murphy

Katy Baird

Katy Baird (she/her) is an artist, curator and producer. Her practice is centred around the desire to create a shared space that can be both welcoming and radical. As the Artistic Director of Home Live Art in Hastings, Katy is committed to developing new audiences for Live Art and building strong local communities. Her performance work explores the intersections of class, gender and sexuality, and has been presented in arts centres and performance festivals, as well as in squat parties, clubs and raves.

Image Maurizio Martorana

Angela Bartram

Angela Bartram (she/her) is an artist and artistic researcher working individually and collaboratively with objects, sound, video, print, curation, performance event and published text. She is Professor of Contemporary Art and Co-Lead of the Creative and Cultural Academic Theme and Research Centre at the University of Derby, and Vice-President of the Society for Artistic Research.

Ansuman Biswas

Ansuman Biswas (he/him) has an international, interdisciplinary practice ranging from living with wandering minstrels in India, being employed as an ornamental hermit in the English countryside, and organising grassroots activists in Soweto, to touring with Björk in New York, collaborating with neuroscientists in Arizona, and being Musical Director at the Globe theatre. He is Lecturer in Live Art and Contemporary Performance at Queen Mary University of London and a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.

Andy Wansell

Andy Wansell (he/him) is the Chief Operating Officer at the London-based law firm Harbottle & Lewis, which works alongside an array of talented and entrepreneurial clients from the creative industries, including writers, producers, actors and musicians. As COO, Andy makes sure that the right people are in the right roles, doing the right things. He has many years of experience in senior business management and operational roles at law firms. Outside of work, Andy is still going to see live music, reading a lot, and thinking too much.

Aaron Wright

Aaron Wright (he/him) is Head of Performance and Dance at the Southbank Centre. Previously, he was Artistic Director of Fierce (Birmingham), where he was responsible for festival programming, commissioning, artist development and building partnerships, working with a broad range of international artists and companies. Aaron was a cultural programme consultant for the Birmingham 2022 Festival, for which Fierce delivered the major public realm project Key to the City by artist Paul Ramírez Jonas. He also helped instigate the new English performing arts showcase Horizon.

Image Pete Woodhead

Former LADA Staff include:

Maria Agiomyrgiannaki, Katy Baird, Daniel Brine, Season Butler, Tania Camara, Uzma Chowdhury, Hannah Crosson, Rhiannon Davies, Alex Eisenberg, Vivian Chinasa Ezugha, Ben William Harris, Ruth Holdsworth, Lois Keidan, Jess Latowicki, Finn Love, CJ Mitchell, Andrew Mitchelson, Ankita Mukherji, Amy Poole, Ria Righteous, Joseph Morgan Schofield, Barak adé Soleil, Catherine Ugwu, Megan Vaughan, Aaron Wright

Former LADA Board members include:

Laura Dajao, Susan Sheddan, Peter Law, Claire MacDonald, Amit Rai, Ansuman Biswas, Gini Simpson, Cecilia Wee, Marquard Smith, Stephen Cleary, Emmy Minton, Katherine Araniello, Mark Ball, Sonia Boyce, Chris Dorley Brown, Simon Casson, Andrew Caleya Chetty, Kelli Dipple, Isaac Julien, Keith Khan, Claire Hungate, Dominic Johnson, Jonathan May, Shaheen Merali, Caroline Miller, Alan Read, Katy Sender, Kate Stratton, Andrea Tarsia, Jacob Wright