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.
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) joined LADA in October 2023. They are a project manager, producer and researcher whose work spans DIY drag cabaret, national artist development schemes, worldwide funding experiments, immersive experiential events, festival sets, club nights and community arts activities. Their practice centres care, wellbeing and accessibility through responsive and sustainable modes. They have a BA in English Literature and an MA in Film & Literature from the University of Birmingham, and have previously managed commercial venues.
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.
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.
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.
Robin Deacon - 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
