Meet the Judges: UKNA 4C Group Bursary
We’re over halfway through the Call for Entries for the UKNA 4C Bursary 2023/2024, and it’s time to meet the selection panel! We are delighted to have such a stellar panel made up from our board of Trustees, Creative ThinkTank, our sponsors 4C Group and the wider arts sector.
Entries will be assessed by our panel according to the criteria laid out in the brief to artists. Together, they will look for artists who demonstrate and articulate a need for the bursary, and those who show significant potential, original voice, and interest in being part of the New Artist Collective Derby 2024.
To find out more about the UKNA 4C Group bursary and how to apply click here.
Tanya Akrofi
Tanya Akrofi is a writer and oral storyteller who works primarily with myths and fairytales, uncovering their symbols and archetypes. She enjoys collaborating with creatives from other fields to produce immersive and challenging work, which aims to broaden the conversation around topics like global migration, disability and mental health. As a workshop facilitator, she helps people to reconnect with the sacred power of oral traditions and their ability to strengthen our communities. She has worked on an audio trail of East Lindsey and has created digital storytelling resources for schools. Tanya is a Trustee of UKNA.
Michelle Bowen
Michelle Bowen is Director of UKNA and is a highly experienced cultural and creative sector leader with a career including senior positions in the strategic cultural agencies and funding system at both the Arts Council England and Craft Council. Thoroughly committed to artistic excellence and driving high quality practice particularly across the contemporary visual arts Michelle has worked with UK New Artists for 8 years and has developed and delivered new partnerships and programmes for UKNA and ensuring that UKNA is the leading organisation for cross disciplinary working, intercultural dialogue and supporting new creative talent from across the UK.
Hannah Fredsgaard-Jones
Hannah Fredsgaard-Jones is a Danish composer, vocalist, songwriter and sound artist living in Oxford. Her practice spans writing and performing indie-folk music, composing for community choirs, devising sound walks and leading workshops. Performing as Asthmatic Harp she has featured on Danish National Radio and the BBC (6 Music and Radio 3). She has supported Sam Palladio as a Roundhouse Resident Artist and Mary Lattimore during her recent European tour and played gigs across Europe and America, including a gig at the inaugural Kite Festival 2022. Recent commissions include a composition for ‘Voices of Exmoor' as part of the Adopt a Music Creator Scheme, a site-specific sound walk about ash trees supported by Oxford Contemporary Music and an early years sound piece for Tiny Ideas Festival. She is a music leader for YWMP, an audio editor for The Economist and a member of the UKNA Creative ThinkTank.
Christina Mendoza Prickett
Christina is a Marketing and Communications Director with over 12 years of experience in leadership roles within the hospitality industry. She has worked across a wide variety of hospitality brands, including Hilton, Marriott Hotels and Resorts, Aqua Restaurant Group, El Dorado Spa Resorts and Azul Hotels where she created and managed award-winning marketing and communications programmes for key global markets. In her current role at 4C Group, she led the marketing and communications strategy for Canopy By Hilton London City, including the launch of the hotel’s rooftop, Florattica.
In her personal time, Christina enjoys creative writing and hopes to publish the first in a series of children’s books this year. Christina has two small children, who love creative and imaginative play including painting, puppet shows and dinosaur hunts.
Jazz Swali
Jazz Swali is a contemporary art curator. He is currently the Assistant Curator of Exhibitions at Backlit Gallery (Nottingham) and is an advisory board member of Eastside Projects Gallery (Birmingham). His work with contemporary art, museums and galleries is embedded with curatorial activism, cultural and equality strategy, socio-political focuses, and alternative queer and experimental practices. His recent exhibitions as a curator include Joy of Destruction (2023) and, in reality, these things need to be said (2021). Working with artists such as Rebecca Allen, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Robert Yang, De’Anne Crooks, Kim Thompson, and Rene Matić. Swali has developed projects such as the Outcome Programme with Backlit Gallery, Nottingham Trent University, and the University of Nottingham (2021-2024). He joined the Emerging Curators Group programme with the British Art Network, Tate, and Paul Mellon Centre in 2023 and has recently been awarded two Arts Council England project grants for independent curatorial programmes (2020-2023).