Blast Theory

Sara Dauncey

Sara is an accountant by training, a finance and business manager by practice.

She has been a member of the Blast Theory Board since January 2008 and brings experience in working in the public and private sectors, in both large and small businesses. She has been working directly in arts organisations since 2004.

She was head of finance and operations for the Arts Council South East. Then, between September 2006 and August 2008, she was part of the executive team that ran the Brighton Dome and Festival. In 2009 she relocated to Bristol to take up the position of head of finance and operations at Arnolfini, where in April 2010 the gallery was the venue for the Sky Leaders’ debate.

Her previous experience includes working at Sotheby’s International auctioneers based at their East of Atlantic head quarters in Bond St. London; working for an international airline(where she completed her accountancy training and qualifications); numerous freelance and project assignments across a broad range of businesses..

Sara is committed to the development of the cultural offering for both audiences and artists and a keen advocate for the arts in general.

Celia Davies

Celia Davies originally studied Illustration at the University of Brighton and Arts Management at the University of Sussex. Since then Celia has gained over 10 years experience of working in the arts including live performance and gallery education, building particular expertise in gallery based curated projects.

From 2002, Celia held the position of Head of Exhibitions at the De La Warr Pavilion, devising a diverse and cross disciplinary programme of contemporary solo and group exhibitions and major new commissions of work, profiling both international and regionally based artists. In 2009 Celia joined Photoworks in Brighton as head of projects.

Celia has been editor and contributing writer for several visual art publications including editor of the monograph series on contemporary British Photographers published by Photoworks and Steidl. She lives in Sussex.

Hilary Durman

Hilary Durman started her career as a teacher and moved into broadcasting mid-career to work for ITV at Television South (TVS). In 1992, she set up independent production company Resource Base. Since then, she has produced dramas, documentaries and features for the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV. Her work with Resource Base has won 3 BAFTAs and awards at the Royal Television Society, the Japan Prize, and the Prix Jeunesse.

Hilary has worked for on several new talent initiatives for Channel 4, including her current series, The Shooting Party, which supports disabled film-makers directing their first films. She is also working on four documentary projects for cinema, television and radio.

Hilary has served as a Board Member for the former Southern Arts and is a trustee and deputy chair of Artswork, the national youth arts development agency which she co-founded in 1988.

Ben Rubinstein

Ben has a degree in Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence from Sussex University. He worked on real-time expert systems and graphical user interfaces before joining Brighton-based Cogapp in 1987, becoming technical director in time to help establish the new direction of the company towards hypertext and multimedia.

Since then time Ben has been responsible for Cogapp's technical development. He was the chief architect and lead developer of Cogapp’s proprietary multimedia system, used at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the National Gallery, London and many other institutions; and licensed to Microsoft and others to deliver numerous CD-ROMs, some still in print. He established Cogapp’s publishing system, and led the development of online collections for major museums in London, New York, Chicago and Cleveland.

Ben's pivotal work on these and other projects displays his continued commitment to finding new ways for organisations to exploit digital technology to better serve their public audiences. Currently he is working on several projects in the mobile and hand-held arena, for both commercial and museum clients.

Verity Slater

Verity Slater is an independent arts consultant and producer. With over 10 years of management experience in the arts and cultural sectors, she brings experience and expertise in policy, fundraising, development and interdisciplinary practices.

Verity has worked in the independent charitable and public sectors as Project Manager for the arts / science funding programmes at The Wellcome Trust, and more recently within the visual arts team at Arts Council England South East.

She holds a Masters degree in Arts Policy and Management from the University of London, and also serves as a Trustee of the arts organisation, Project Art Works and as an advisor for the artist-led agency, Delta Arts. 

Matt Adams

Matt Adams' first passion was theatre from the age of 13 as an actor and director. Acting credits include The Ghost Of Oxford Street directed by Malcolm McLaren for Channel 4. He studied English Literature at University College London and co-founded Blast Theory in 1991 with a group of friends who worked at the Renoir Cinema in Bloomsbury.

Matt co-curated the Screen series of video works for Live Culture at Tate Modern in 2003 and curated the Games and War season at the ICA in London in 2003. He has taught widely on performance, new media and interdisciplinary practice at institutions such as the Royal College of Art and Pace University in New York. He has contributed to research by Ofcom, the Technology Strategy Board and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and has co-authored over a dozen papers with the University of Nottingham.

Matt has presented at conferences such as Hot Docs documentary film festival in Toronto; Banff Television Conference; Cairo International Festival of Experimental Theatre; The Future of War: Aesthetics, Politics, Technologies in New York; Dutch Electronic Art Festival in Rotterdam; dLux Media Arts festival in Sydney; The Creative City in Taipei.

He has written essays for "Art & D: Artistic Research and Development", "Live 5: My Perfect Theatre" and Vodafone's Receiver magazine. He is a Visiting Professor at the Central School of Speech and Drama and is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Exeter.

Ju Row Farr

Ju Row Farr is one of the founder members of Blast Theory.

She trained to be a dancer until she was 20, then went to Canterbury College of Art to do a BTEC and Goldsmith’s to do a degree in fine art and textiles.

She has taught and mentored extensively around the work of the Blast Theory, most notably a module in devising at Demontfort University, Leceister and mentoring artists in Australia and the UK. In 2000 she was one of seven live artists involved in the Legacy Project – based at Arnolfini and Prema.  In 2001 she received a Live Art Development Agency bursary for professional development. During the same year she was commissioned by the Robert Pacitti Company to make Ease a short video work.
In 2006 she took part in a creative cross disciplinary lab called Concepting Pervasive Multi-User Applications organised by Sagasnet.

Ju Row Farr has sat on panels including for the Combined Arts Fund at the Arts Council and Shooting Live Artists. She is currently a board member of The Basement in Brighton.

Dicky Eton

Having spent ten years in corporate banking, Dicky re-trained as an actor from which he developed an interest in experimental theatre & performance. His first job with Blast Theory found him buying a limousine with his credit card from which he hasn’t looked back (or been paid).

Dicky splits his time between Manchester, his hometown, and a canal boat in London. A regular performer/ deviser with Pacitti Company, he is also part of the Duckie collective acting as Administrative Producer/ Performance Co-ordinator.

Sheila Ghelani

Sheila originally trained in contemporary dance, and worked as a choreographer, dancer and teacher for several years before making the crossover into Live Art/Performance in 1999.

Her solo practice addresses ideas that stem from notions of mixing and ‘being mixed’ and attempts to engage with words and ideas that she finds difficult like mule, mongrel, half-caste, monster, the in-between. Informed by her own experience of being mixed heritage (half Indian and half English), she is interested in hybridity, crossings, blood, skins, skinning, carefully controlled experiments, well-oiled machinery, colour, genetics and love.

Sheila also works collaboratively and as well being a Blast Theory Associate Artist is a longstanding member of Pacitti Company. She has toured and performed nationally and internationally for both companies and regularly lead artists’ workshops for Pacitti Company in the UK, and abroad. She also teaches in other contexts and has taught and lectured at various spaces, centres and universities in the UK.

Julianne Pierce

Julianne Pierce is an Australian curator, writer and producer specialising in digital and media arts. In September 2007 she relocated to the UK to take up the position of Executive Producer with Blast Theory. She has worked in the Australian arts and digital media sector for over twenty years and from 2000 to 2005 was the Executive Director of ANAT (Australian Network for Art and Technology).

She has curated several events and exhibitions including Primavera, the annual exhibition of emerging Australian artists for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney in 2003 and the Artists’ Week program for the Adelaide Festival of Arts in 2006 and 2008.

Julianne is a founding member of the influential computer artist group VNS Matrix, who exhibited widely in Australia and internationally from 1991 - 1997. She is also a regular contributor to magazines and journals including Realtime, Artlink and Photofile and in 2006/2007 was guest commentator on new media and screen culture for ABC Radio arts program ‘The Deep End’.

Dan Lamont

Dan has over 10 years experience in various different areas of administration. He worked for Guardian Newspapers and later for Guardian Unlimited managing all the internet advertising for the UK's most popular online newspaper. He has managed the administration for a firm of software engineers based in Sussex.

Currently Dan is responsible for administering all aspects of Blast Theory's financial systems, managing budgets, core funding from Arts Council England, project funds, income and expenditure for touring and export.

John Hunter

John graduated in Drama & Theatre from Royal Holloway, University of London in 2009. During his time there he worked as a photographer, designer, magazine editor and radio presenter.

John makes photos and print design freelance under the name RULER, and is also a contributor for Getty Images and Jupiter Images.

Whilst working full time as Blast Theory's Artists' Assistant, John works with non zero one, an artists' group who are interested in responsibility and agency in participation and performance. non zero one performed at the Barbican and Forest Fringe in 2010, and are currently developing new touring work.

Hannah Brady

Receiving a first class honors in Dance and Visual Arts from the University of Brighton in 2005 Hannah has worked across many spectrums of the arts and has developed a keen passion and understanding of the creative industry. She holds a firm commitment to the delivery of outstanding creative projects and strives to make a difference within the community.

As performer, maker and manager Hannah works in collaboration with individuals and organisations to deliver complex, groundbreaking projects to high profile venues and festivals. She has worked alongside Blast Theory for the past five years and continues to tour extensively across the globe. Her most rememberable projects include the 53rd Venice Biennial, the Media Art Festival, Seoul, South Korea and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.