Plenary Speakers

The International Conference on the Arts in Society will feature plenary sessions by some of the world’s leading thinkers and innovators in the field, as well as numerous parallel presentations by researchers and practitioners.

Garden Conversation Sessions

Plenary Speakers will make formal 30-minute presentations. They will also participate in 60-minute Garden Conversations – unstructured sessions that allow delegates a chance to meet the speakers and talk with them informally about the issues arising from their presentation.

Please return to this page for regular updates.

The Speakers

Beatriz García

Dr Beatriz García is Head of Research at the Institute of Cultural Capital, a collaboration between the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University. She is also the director of Impacts 08 – The Liverpool Model, a research programme which has assessed the long term cultural, social, economic and environmental impacts of Liverpool becoming European Capital of Culture in 2008. Prior to this post, she was a Research Council UK (RCUK) academic fellow at the Centre for Cultural Policy Research, University of Glasgow, where she led a major research project looking into the long term cultural legacy of Glasgow becoming the 1990 European City of Culture.

Beatriz is a researcher in cultural policy and event-led regeneration and has dedicated the last fifteen years to refining models for the longitudinal assessment of the impact of urban cultural policy interventions. Recent projects assess the legacy of cultural programming within major events such as the European Capital of Culture, the Olympic Games and the Commonwealth Games, attracting funding from research councils, government agencies and international NGOs. Her publications cover a wide range of journals including the International Journal of Cultural Policy, Local Economy, Urban Studies, Media, Culture and Society, as well as specialist magazines and edited monographs.

She is about to publish a monograph on the Olympic Games, and is completing a monograph about her research on the cultural policy of the Olympic Movement and the development of the Cultural Olympiad. Beatriz was a member of the Culture and Education Advisory Committee of the London 2012 Olympic Bid. In this position, she held monthly meetings with the committee chair, Jude Kelly, and had personal conversations with the UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Tessa Jowell (now Minister for the Olympics).

Beatriz is a member of the Selection Committee for the International Olympic Committee Postgraduate research grant programme and advisor on a range of international research programmes on cultural policy, cities and major events.

Andy Miah

Professor Andy Miah, PhD (@andymiah), is Director of the Creative Futures Research Centre (creativefutur.es) & Chair of Ethics and Emerging Technologies in the Faculty of Business & Creative Industries at the University of the West of Scotland. He is also Global Director for the Centre for Policy and Emerging Technologies, Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, USA and Fellow at FACT, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, UK. He is author of ‘Genetically Modified Athletes’ (2004 Routledge) and co-author with Dr Emma Rich of ‘The Medicalization of Cyberspace’ (2008, Routledge) and Editor of ‘Human Futures: Art in an Age of Uncertainty’ (2008, Liverpool University Press and FACT). Professor Miah’s research discusses the intersections of art, ethics, technology and culture and he has published broadly in areas of emerging technologies, particularly related to human enhancement. Professor Miah has published over 100 academic articles in refereed journals, books, magazines, and national media press on the subjects of cyberculture, medicine, technology, and sport. He has also given over 100 major conference presentations and he is often invited to speak about philosophical and ethical issues concerning technology in society. Professor Miah regularly interviews for a range of major media companies, which have included BBC’s Newsnight and Start the Week with Andrew Marr, ABC’s’ The 7:30 Review and CBC’s The Hour.

Sally Tallant

Sally Tallant is the Artistic Director and CEO of the Liverpool Biennial – The UK Biennial of International Contemporary Art. She was formerly Head of Programmes at the Serpentine Gallery, London where she was responsible for the development and delivery of an integrated programme of Exhibitions, Architecture, Education and Public Programmes. Since 2001 she developed an ambitious programme of artist’s projects and commissions, conferences, talks and events. Recent projects include The Edgware Road Project, Skills Exchange and Turning the World Upside Down, large-scale sculptures by Anish Kapoor in Kensington Gardens and Disassembly with Runa Islam, Christian Boltanski, Yona Friedman and Faisal Abdu’Allah. She has curated and organised exhibitions in a wide range of contexts including the Hayward Gallery and artist-run spaces, hospitals, parks and public spaces. She has also curated performances, sound events, film programmes and conferences including initiating the Park Nights series in the Serpentine Gallery Pavilions and co-curating the Serpentine Gallery Marathon series with Hans Ulrich Obrist. She is a regular contributor to conferences nationally and internationally. She is a Trustee of the Chisenhale Gallery and Raking Leaves, the External Examiner for MA Fine Art at Central St Martins.