Board of trustees

Chris Dercon

Chris Dercon is Director of the Haus der Kunst in Munich. He was previously Director of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam and Director of Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art, where he curated a wide-ranging international programme from 1990. He worked in Brussels in the early 1980s as a freelance broadcaster, curator and critic, and was subsequently Program Director at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, PSI Museum and the Clocktower Gallery in New York.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University, Chair of the Department Afro-American Studies and Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research, Harvard University. With 40 honorary degrees, Gates is a world-renowned scholar and teacher of African and African-American history and culture. He has authored seven books and written numerous essays and reviews on a broad range of African and African-American issues, including slavery, race, feminism, dialect, and identity. In 1989 he won the American Book Award for 'The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism'. His major documentary 'America Beyond the Colour Line' was released in 2003.

Thelma Golden

Thelma Golden is the Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Programs at The Studio Museum in Harlem. She was previously Special Projects Curator for Peter and Eileen Norton, contemporary art collectors and philanthropists based in Los Angeles, California. Prior to working with the Nortons, Golden was a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. At the Whitney, she was Curator and Director of Branch Museums from 1996-1999; Associate Curator from 1993-1996, Director and Exhibition Coordinator, Whitney Museum @ Phillip Morris 1991-1993. She began her career at the Whitney in 1988 as Curatorial Assistant.

Raj Isar

An independent cultural advisor, Y. Raj Isar is President of the European Forum for Arts and Heritage (EFAH); Special Advisor to the World Monuments Fund and the Sanskriti Foundation (New Delhi); and member of the Advisory Board of the Fitzcarraldo Foundation (Turin). He is Jean Monnet Professor of Cultural Policy Studies at The American University of Paris, teaches at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques and is a visiting professor at universities in Europe and North America. He is also Managing Editor of the World Cultures Yearbook project. Previously, at UNESCO, he was Executive Secretary of the World Commission on Culture and Development, Director of the Cultural Policies for Development Unit and of the International Fund for the Promotion of Culture. In 1986-87 he was the first Executive Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was born in India and was educated in New Delhi and Paris.

Isaac Julien

Isaac Julien was born in 1960 in London, where he currently lives and works. On graduating from St Martin's School of Art in 1984, where he studied painting and fine art film, Isaac Julien founded Sankofa Film and Video Collective and was a founder member of Normal Films in 1999.

Julien was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2001 for his films 'The Long Road to Mazatlán' (1999), made in collaboration with Javier de Frutos, and 'Vagabondia' (2000), choreographed by Javier de Frutos. Earlier works include: 'Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask' (1996); the Cannes prize-winning 'Young Soul Rebels' (1991); and the acclaimed poetic documentary 'Looking for Langston' (1989).

Julien was visiting lecturer at Harvard University's Schools of Afro-American and Visual Environmental Studies and the Whitney Museum of American Arts' Independent Study Programme. He is research fellow at Goldsmiths University of London and a Trustee of the Serpentine Gallery. In 2001 Julien was the recipient of the prestigious MIT Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts. In 2003 he won the Grand Jury Prize at the Kunstfilm Biennale in Cologne for his single screen version of Baltimore.

Paula Kahn

Chair of Iniva

Paula Kahn is the Chair of Islington Primary Care Trust; the Camden Arts Centre; the Cripplegate Foundation, a grant giving trust; and Equality Works Ltd, a consultancy and training company focussed on mainstreaming equalities. She was formerly Chairman and Chief Executive of Longman Group, the international publishing company, and latterly MD of Phaidon Press, a leading international publisher of contemporary art, design and architecture books. Kahn is currently a director of International House, a worldwide network of language schools, and Stonewall, the lesbian and gay lobby group.

Professor Sarat Maharaj

Sarat Maharaj is Professor in History of Art at Goldsmiths' College, University of London; Research Project Fellow at Jan Van Eyck Akademi, Maastricht, Netherlands; and Rudolf Arnheim Professor at Humboldt University, Berlin. He is on the advisory board of Third Text and Visual Culture.

Henry Meyric Hughes

Henry Meyric Hughes is a freelance curator, consultant and writer on art. From 1968-92 he worked for the British Council in Germany, Peru, France and Italy, ending up as Director of Visiting Arts (1994-96) and Director of Visual Arts (1986-92). He was then Director of the Hayward Gallery, including National Touring Exhibitions and the Arts Council Collection, from 1992-96.

His recent projects include curating a survey exhibition, 'Blast to Freeze: British Art in the Twentieth Century' for Wolfsburg and Toulouse (2002-3); the Cypriot Pavilion (‘Nikos Charalambidis’) at the 2003 Venice Biennale; and a touring exhibition of contemporary art in Norway for Oslo (2005-6). He is currently President of the International Foundation Manifesta, Amsterdam and President of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA), Paris.

He has acted as an adviser to UNESCO and the Council of Europe and currently advises museums and foundations in Bologna, Budapest, St. Etienne, Stuttgart and Prague. He was appointed Officer des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government in 1997 and awarded the Cross of Merit (‘Bundesverdienstkreuz’) by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2002.

Julia Rowntree

Julia Rowntree is a strategic innovator in arts, business and civic engagement. As freelance adviser, her main client between 1986-2005 was the London International Festival of Theatre where she led four key innovations: the commercial sponsorship campaign, a London civic initiative, a business learning programme and a lecture series examining contemporary relations between culture and commerce. Her book Changing the Performance (Routledge 2006) details these and other ventures.

Currently co-director of an international ceramic project inspired by the London Olympics, Julia lectures and advises on arts development issues internationally and has won a number of national awards.