About Us
Our Team
Staff
Artistic Director and CEO
Errol Francis
Errol was appointed CEO of Culture& in 2016. He has substantial experience of community engagement around mental health and the arts with minority groups and was formerly Joint Programme Lead at the Sainsbury Centre of Mental Health and Programme Manager at the Department of Health Race for Health programme. He was programme manager at Arts Council England, Inspire Curatorial Fellowship Programme; Head of Arts at the Mental Health Foundation and artistic director of the highly acclaimed Anxiety Arts Festival London 2014, Acting Out Nottingham 2015 and Hysteria 2017-2018 public engagement programmes. He is currently director of the curatorial group PS/Y and Visiting Professor at the University of West London.
Errol was awarded his PhD from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, where his research focused on postcolonial artistic responses to museums. He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of West London in 2017.
Errol’s has written many published articles over the years, the most recent of which is below:
Operations Manager
Kate Sarley
Kate trained in Technical Theatre and Stage Management at RADA and then gained a diploma in Arts Admin from Birkbeck, University of London. She then spent over ten successful years in Stage Management, before moving in to Administration and worked for a variety of organisations including English Heritage, Theatre Royal Stratford East, Soho Theatre Company. In the last 15 years Kate has undertaken a number of senior management contracts for clients such as Colchester Arts Centre and Talawa Theatre Company, Oval House, Daily Life Ltd, Jacksons Lane, Discover Centre for Children, Eastern Angles, Shape East Architectural Centre and Hoxton Hall, specialising in creative producing, financial and administrative management.
Programme Coordinator
Samuel Pontin
Sam has a BA Hons Degree from the University of York in History. He has experience in admin, event planning and coordination as well as a great deal of experience in public engagement, and joined Culture& in October 2017. Sam is dedicated to ensuring the smooth run of all operations, projects and events; to the benefit of promoting, the arts and heritage.
Lead Assessor and Course Tutor, New Museum School
Jenny Pistella
Jenny is a Heritage Learning Consultant and Work-based Learning Assessor. She is passionate about providing access to and facilitating engagement with culture for all. Jenny has over 12 years’ experience as a learning professional in the sector. This has included roles at Open House London, Historic Royal Palaces (HRP), the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and UCL Museums. Jenny is a qualified Level 3 Assessor for the Diploma in Cultural Heritage. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (RSA), Chair for the Group for Education in Museums (GEM) London, a member of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) Committee for Education and Cultural Action (CECA) and a judge for the Sandford Awards. Jenny is also a PhD researcher at the Centre for the History of the Emotions, Queen Mary University London. The title of her thesis is Heart of Stone: how do we learn from places and spaces that no longer exist? an investigation into emotional heritage’.
Internal Quality Assurer, New Museum School
Jill Notley
Jill is a learning & development professional with over 20 years’ experience of designing, developing and delivering work-based skills programmes. This has involved working with organisations both within the UK and overseas. In addition to being CIPD qualified, Jill is a qualified teacher, assessor and internal verifier, and her work focuses on supporting organisations to ensure the quality of the qualifications they deliver is to the highest standard, resulting in the best quality teaching and learning experience for the learners.
Although fairly new to the culture & heritage sector, Jill is thrilled to be working in this exciting and dynamic environment, and with organisations and learners who are passionate about their specialism.
Archives and Digital Media Trainee
Kirsty Kerr
Kirsty recently joined Culture& as an Archives and Digital Media Trainee, part of their New Museum School programme. She gained her BA Hons in Fine Art from Nottingham Trent University, and since then has continued her own art practice, as well as facilitating other artists and curating exhibitions and events. Her experience includes co-founding an artists residency programme, working as a freelance exhibition curator, and having her first London solo-show in 2018. She is especially interested in contemporary art, community engagement, and creative collaboration.
Board of Trustees
Catherine Pestano (Chair)
Ashley Elsdon
Caroline Monaghan-Fox
Jean Stevens
