Inclusive Cities & Societies through Design

• Birgitta Tazelaar

Birgitta Tazelaar is the deputy Director-General for International Cooperation at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a career diplomat with over 25 years experience in political affairs, human rights and development cooperation. Birgitta has worked in The Middle East, Southern Africa and the UK in a variety of organizations. Before her current position, she was working as the Director of the Middle East and North Africa Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague.

• Syb Groeneveld

Syb Groeneveld is the executive director of the cultural fund for architecture, design and digital culture in the Netherlands. The Creative Industries Fund NL offers various grant schemes and programs to stimulate research, experimentation and innovation. With an annual budget of €19 million, the Fund supports approximately 600 exceptional projects and activities within the creative industries field each year.

• Tuğçe Akbulut

Tuğçe Akbulut is a spatial designer, connector and founder of design studio Cross Change in Istanbul / Amsterdam. With Cross Change, she supports many creative professionals to become a positive changemaker. Together with SpaceCrafters, she initiated ‘Tradition As a Making Tool’ to create more awareness of the importance of green, public spaces for the quality of life and social cohesion in Istanbul. Instead of building new buildings on the scarce open spaces in this megacity, the team presents alternatives for multifunctional and shared public spaces, all inspired by traditional local traditions.

• Daria Naugolnova

Daria Naugolnova is an architect and lecturer, specialized in public buildings and schools. Together with architect Alexey Boev, she works on ‘Identity in Typical’ and examines alternatives for the disappearance of the function of the thousands of cultural palaces, that were built during the Soviet era as a social-cultural facility for the neighbourhood. By adding new functions such as co-working spaces and spaces for educational programs, the team sees an opportunity to reach out to a wider target group, to stimulate participation in culture and education, and to develop an economically viable model for these buildings.

• Fridaymilk

Fridaymilk is a collective based over the Polar Circle, Murmansk, which aims to develop culture and arts in the High North. United by the idea of Northern identity, Fridaymilk promotes the concept of cultural decentralization by shifting the cultural centres from capitals to remote areas. Together with Sonic Acts in Amsterdam, they initiated ‘Murmansk Prospekt’ and invited a group of talented Russian and Dutch artists and makers to present the hidden stories and lost identity of this remote industrial city through digital culture. The platform stimulates an open reflection about the life in these areas and the question whether to ‘leave or live’.

• Robin Vermeulen

Robin Vermeulen, currently lives in Amsterdam, but also lived and worked on a variety of cultural projects in the city Tangier. Together with Yassine Boussaid, he initiated ‘Facets of Tangier’: a visual research project into the rapid urban developments in Tangier, with regard to the culture and identity of the city’s population. Their aim is to stimulate reflection on the changes occurring in the daily lives of the people and to establish a dialogue about the similarities and differences with Amsterdam.

• Yassine Salihine
  

Yassine Salihine resides in Rotterdam where he runs his own industrial design studio. Yassine provides concept development, design and forecasting services to clients in a wide range of industries. He pushes projects forward with critical thinking, holistic design methods and thorough research that results in concrete solutions. Yassine is a member of the design committee of the Creative Industries Fund NL and an advisor for this program. Besides, he is a board member of (A)Wake, a foundation for the empowerment of arts and artistic activism in MENA and its diaspora.

• Daria Ofman

Daria Ofman facilitates strategic change processes, retreats and learning journey’s for purpose driven leaders and organizations. Daria is currently connected to Better Future, a consultancy that helps companies with their impact strategy by connecting unusual suspects, kick-start dialogues where they are needed and get people out of the office into the world. She worked in Egypt and the Middle East for over six years, supporting civil society and cultural organizations, small and medium businesses with their leadership, effectiveness and growth. She co-initiated ‘Connecting Deltas’, to raise awareness on water related climate change, and create spaces for researchers, creatives, entrepreneurs and educators to look at what can be done locally to boost climate robustness in the Alexandrian delta.

• Abdalla Daif

Abdalla Daif is an Egyptian cultural practitioner and performing artist, focusing on contemporary cultural and urban practices. Abdalla always seeks to activate critical creative thinking and ways of re-imagining new scenarios of social life among audiences, hoping in particular to bring artistic practices closer to people who are usually removed from cultural and social participation. His artwork challenges the concept of authority, suggesting artistic practices to become methods of social transformation.

• Thijs Verhaar

Thijs Verhaar is designer and founder of Knitwearlab, an established centre of knowledge for industrial knitwear. With over 30 years of hands-on expertise, he knows how to manipulate fiber, stitches, tension and colour to bring designs to life. In ‘Inclusive regenerative fashion in Turkey’, the team investigated how they can regenerate unworn, clean residual materials from textile production into a new type of yarn. Through innovative knitting techniques, they used the yarn to create a hat and scarf collection for the new fashion brand ‘Realist’.