Do the universal laws of humanity apply to the world inside the ‘camp’? Should so-called ‘terrorists’ be entitled to the same rights as you or I? What happens when former guards or detainees emerge into the real world? 

Clive Stafford Smith is the director and founder of Reprieve, where he has focused on achieving due process for the prisoners being held by the US in Guantanamo Bay and in the countless secret prisons around the world that were established in the wake of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre.

Awarded an OBE for ‘humanitarian services’ in 2000, Clive has also spent the last 25 years working on behalf of defendants facing the death penalty in the USA.

Friday 30th April 2010

11.30 am

Can the recent movement of ‘ecological art’ really have an impact on the world we live in? Do artists have a responsibility to respond to our ever-changing environment? Is there a danger that artists climb on a ‘green bandwagon’?

Judith Knight (Chair)

Judith is founder and co-director of Artsadmin, a producing and presenting organisation for contemporary artists working in theatre, dance, live art and visual arts.   It also offers support and development services for artists, including a free advisory service and bursary scheme.  At Toynbee Studios in London Artsadmin has developed its centre for artists and arts professionals, with a theatre, five rehearsal spaces, offices and a café.  Last year Artsadmin presented Two Degrees a week long programme of work by radical and politically engaged artists about climate change and our relationship with the environment, and is now embarking on a 5 year collaboration with ten other European festivals and venues making work about climate change.
http://www.artsadmin.co.uk/

Isabella Macpherson

Isabella is the co-founder of Arts Co, an arts agency that works with artists and designers, as well as arts companies across a diverse range or projects (commissions, exhibitions, product development, events and debates), often focusing on environmental themes.  www.arts-co.com
 
Isabella is also the co-founder of ISSI, an art-eco-fashion brand that makes products with contemporary visual artists from waste, with a percentage of profits going back to charity.  The first line launches in Selfridges on Monday. www.issiworld.com
 
Isabella is on the Development Board of the British Film Institute, and on the board of The Bush Theatre.

Beth Steel

Beth is the author of Ditch, which, following its world premiere at HighTide, transfers to London in a co-production with The Old Vic. The play will open on May 13th at the newly-launched Old Vic Tunnels, previously home to shows by Punchdrunk and Banksy.

Steve Waters

Steve is a playwright and author of the critically acclaimed play on climate change The Contingency Plan, which was performed at the Bush Theatre and on Radio 3 in 2009, and  which he is now adapting for Film 4/Cowboy Films.  Other plays include World Music (Sheffield Crucible/Donmar 2003/4), and Fast Labour (West Yorkshire Playhouse/Hampstead 2008).

Steve is currently writing a book on playwriting The Secret Life of Plays for Nick Hern books and a new play for the Donmar. He runs the MPhil(B)in Playwriting Studies at the University of Birmingham.

Saturday 1st May 2010

11.30 am

Has Russia been given a fair ride in the Western media? What happens to concepts such as ‘freedom of speech’ within a state-controlled media? Are journalists the best representatives of history?

Owen Matthews is the author of Stalin’s Children and currently Newsweek magazine’s bureau chief in Moscow. Owen’s extraordinary story spans three generations of his own family, all caught up with the cataclysmic events of Russia in the 20th century. In 1995 Owen moved to Moscow to work as a reporter for The Moscow Times, a daily English-language newspaper. In 1997, he became a correspondent at Newsweek magazine in Moscow where he covered the second Chechen war, as well as politics and society. 

‘A Russian Wild Swans … Some of the stories will stay with me forever’ SUNDAY TIMES

‘Gripping … This fascinating book is not a footnote to Soviet history: it is Soviet history, one of the millions of private tales of evil and astonishing endurance that make up the awful whole’ OBSERVER

‘Epic … extraordinary … Matthews … seems to contain an essence of a Russia that preceded the turmoils and savage inflictions that he so richly describes in his book’ Simon Callow, GUARDIAN

Sunday 2nd May 2010

11.30 am