Edi Scientific Committee
María Acaso
María Acaso is a cultural producer whose projects center on defying the divisions between art and education, the academic and the popular, the theoretical and the practical; on developing a contemporary education and transforming the formats of knowledge transmission. A founding member of the Invisible Pedagogies collective. María is Head of Education at the Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid, Spain).
Fatima Bintou Rassoul SY
Fatima Bintou Rassoul SY is a senegalese curator and cultural mediator based in Dakar. In 2020, she joined as Curator of Programs the teams of RAW Material Company. A centre for art, knowledge and society founded in 2008 by curator Koyo Kouoh, which she recently took over as director. At RAW, she co-curated, “Suñu Jant a constellation of Public art works in Dakar, in collaboration with Little sun (2022), ‘Le Spectre des Ancêtres en Devenir’ by Tuan Andrew Nguyen (2022), ‘L’École des Mutants’ by Hamedine Kane & Stéphane Verlet-Bottéro (2021), ‘D’une rive m l’autre’ by Ibrahima Thiam (2020) and co-directed the following discursive programmes, Convocations, “Sex Ecologies” – Kunsthall Trondheim x The Seed Box, (2021); “Breathing Out of School, RAW Academy” – Bivouac 2, Bétonsalon, (2020).
Fatima is graduated from Paris 1 (Panthéon-Sorbonne) University, in Exhibition Sciences and Techniques. Before joining the RAW Family, she worked for several years in the field of hospitality and cultural mediation in institutions such as the Musée du Louvre, the Musée Rodin, the Grand Palais and the Fondation Louis Vuitton. In 2018, she leaves Paris and moves back to Dakar where she will accompany the opening of the Museum of Black Civilizations.
Her writing has been published in books and journals such as, Oh! AfricArt: 52 Contemporary African Artists, 2021; Something We Africans Got 10; SWAG high profiles 2 & 3. Her research focuses on the cultural policies of Senegal from the 1960s to nowadays, along with the market dynamics that act on the contemporary art scene of the continent and its diaspora.
Helen Charman
Dr Helen Charman FRSA, MA, Dip is Director of Learning, National Programmes and Young V&A at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London where she has worked since 2018. A creative and cultural learning professional for 30 years, her specialist field is design-led museum education. Helen’s professional portfolio encompasses schools, universities, galleries, museums, festival organizations, local authorities and charities.
She was a founder member of the education team at Tate Modern in 1999 and on the directorate that mobilized the new Design Museum, London where she worked from 2007 – 2018. She gained her Doctorate in Education and MA History of Art from the University College London: the Institute of Education and Birkbeck College.
Alongside roles in the cultural sector in the UK, US and Australia, she has a keen interest in development education and has volunteered overseas in this capacity. She is a parent-governor of Forest Hill Community School in south-east London, on the Advisory Education Board for the Arts Council of England’s Durham Commission on Creativity in Education and a Trustee of the Chelsea Physic Garden.
Her remit at the Victoria and Albert Museum includes leadership of the £13.5 M transformation of the former V&A Museum of Childhood into Young V&A in London’s Bethnal Green, which will be the nation’s premier national museum and creative powerhouse designed with and for the young, due to reopen in 2023. The broader scope of her role includes overall responsibility for Learning, Interpretation, V&A Academy and National Programmes.
Alessandra Drioli
Alessandra Drioli is a museologist, contemporary art historian and expert in the field of scientific communication. For more than 25 years she has worked in the design and development of cultural spaces, projects and programs, combining this triple training in the conception, management and innovation of cultural institutions, exhibition itineraries and events linked to the relationship between art, science and society. She has conducted research on this topic in both academic and museum contexts with articles and publications.
In recent years, she has been involved more and more in social innovation projects with the involvement of stakeholders and players with an interest in the dissemination of culture, such as research institutes, universities, cultural institutions, policy makers, and social organizations. She teaches at the University Suor Orsola Benincasa, holding the chair of Cultural Heritage and Tourism 4.0 and collaborates on that of Museum Management. She does lectures in the Master’s degree courses in Cultural Mediation and Educational Services in Museum Contexts and in the Master’s degree course in Museum Educator at the same university, an activity she has also carried out for other master’s and training courses nationwide.
She has always had the chance to train and work in an international context, thanks to her position at the Fondazione IDIS – Città della Scienza in Naples, where she has been working since 1997 and where she has been responsible for the Science Centre since 2016.
Among the many activities and roles, she holds there has been, and still is, the design, management and coordination of European projects, as well as collaboration in international projects. For more than fifteen years, she has been carrying out evaluation activities for the European Commission, thanks to which she has a privileged observatory on the most current research lines on the European scene.
In 2021 she started collaborating with the Fondazione Morra Greco, for which she worked on the EDI Global Forum for Education and Integration project, following its start-up process, the first year of programming of the Forum held in Naples in 2022. Once the start-up phase was completed, she has been a member of the EDI Scientific Committee since 2023, of which she is the coordinator.
Emma Harjadi Herman
Emma Harjadi Herman is Manager of Education and Inclusion at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Bringing the voices of artists and activists to a wider audience is a constant theme in her endeavours, both professional and voluntary.
Prior to joining the Stedelijk, Emma worked for feminist fund Mama Cash, the Dutch and European civil service and for several non-profts. Emma is a Supervisory Board member of Atria, a leading women’s history archive and knowledge broker, and a senior fellow of Humanity In Action, a transatlantic network of young people committed to promoting human rights.
Emma has lived and worked in the USA, France, Benin and Belgium. She is now back in her home town Amsterdam, The Netherlands where she lives with her partner and two children.
Nisa Mackie
Nisa Mackie is recognized as a leader in transforming arts and cultural institutions by implementing equitable practices and initiatives that span learning, working with artists, and community engagement.
Prior to MoMA, Mackie was the Head of Public Engagement, Learning and Impact at the Walker Art Center where she was responsible for developing strategies to expand inclusion and equitable access to the institution, stimulate curiosity and critical thinking within museum audiences, as well as strengthen the museum’s civic role as a resource and leader. She also curated exhibitions at the museum including: Don’t let this be easy and teamLab: Graffiti Nature–Still Mountains and Movable Lakes. In 2020 she organized the year-long residency with Jordan Weber, who collaborated with local organizations, activists and community leaders to develop an urban farm in North Minneapolis.
Prior to joining the Walker Art Center, Mackie worked at Biennale of Sydney in Sydney from 2008–2010 and 2013–2016. In the position of Head of Education and Public Programs she established learning programs, residencies, and public programs across the exhibition’s five museum and non-museum venues. From 2010–2013 Mackie worked at Casula Powerhouse Arts Center, a multidisciplinary museum and community art center based in one of Sydney’s most linguistically diverse municipal areas, developing education and public programs and initiatives through a unique community cultural development framework.
Born and raised in Sydney, Australia Mackie earned her B.A. in Creative Arts Administration from Macquarie University and her M.A in Art Theory and Sculpture Performance and Installation from the University of New South Wales. She also holds a Diploma in Project Management for Government.