Portrait by Nick Aldridge
Zayd Minty
Zayd is a cultural management professional, urban cultural policy expert and researcher. He has experience in creative city initiatives, cultural districts/clusters, cultural infrastructure, cultural networks, festivals, public and contemporary arts projects, as well as post-apartheid museums. He was responsible for Cape Town's successful bid as World Design Capital 2014, served as head of the arts and culture department for that city (2012-16), and developed the first Arts, Culture and Creative Industries Policy (2014) in an African city. He is, in addition to being CCS's Director, a) an expert and consultant for United Cities and Local Government’s Agenda 21 for Culture programme; b) a research associate at the Cultural Policy and Management Department of University of Witwatersrand's School of the Arts. https://www.linkedin.com/in/zaydminty/
Self Portrait
Natalia Tofas
Tali is an Industrial Designer based mainly in Johannesburg. She has worked on an array of projects ranging from agricultural, domestic, medical, educational, safety, social, interactive, environmental & entertainment. Her passion lies in design for social development & the bridge between analogue & digital. Some of Tali's favorite projects include; public educational exhibits at the Old Fort, public interactive energy and waste education games & educational exhibits for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund in Rwanda. Tali's involved in communication graphics & photography for CCS and is currently plotting an interactive public exhibition project in collaboration wih CCS. https://ntofas.com
Graham Falken
Graham is a Director of ZAG Consultants. He was previously Director of the Community Arts Project/The Arts and Media Access Centre, and a Co-Director for Cape Town TV. He edits blog contents on Creative City South. http://zagconsultants.co.za
Avril JOffe
Avril is a development economist, educator and head of the Cultural Policy and Management Department, at the Wits School of Arts. Avril’s areas of focus are cultural policy design, implementation and evaluation; value, mapping and assessment of the cultural economy for evidence-based policy making; strategic planning for the arts; cultural entrepreneurship; and, foregrounding arts and culture in urban and city development. She has developed generic cultural policy frameworks and toolkits in Africa and was part of the Ministerial-appointed panel to rewrite South Africa’s cultural policy. She has worked as a specialist researcher, policy analyst, evaluator, trainer and consultant on behalf of major internal bodies, and across Africa. She serves on the UNESCO expert facility on cultural policy and governance and on the International Advisory Committee for the UK's Cultural and Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Council. Avril is an advisor for CCS.
portrait by Liswa Ndlovu
Russel Hlongwane
Russel is a cultural producer and creative industries consultant based in Durban. His work obsesses over tensions in Heritage/ Modernity and Culture/ Tradition as it applies to black life. His said practice includes cultural research, creative producing, design and curatorship. He is part of a number of working groups spread across the SADC region, the continent and internationally. He has shown work in Munich, Marrakech, Maputo, Karlsruhe, Harare, Bristol, Tokyo as well as throughout South Africa. Russel is on the interim board of Creative City South and LCGNSA.