BUILD YOUR OWN ART WORLD 2025
7th July 2025 | The Warburg Institute
“To learn, in today's world, may be one of the most radical acts of all. What I invite us to practice above all is generosity-of attention, of interpretation, of response.” - Fatoş Üstek, Conference Moderator
Throughout the day, we kept asking ourselves, often across unsettling conversations about AI, personal agency, money, value and leadership: 'How can we build art and cultural worlds that are as intersectional, visionary and alive as we are?' - Sigrid Kirk, AWITA Co-Founder
Build Your Own Art World 2025, The Warburg Institute
Lubaina Himid CBE and Magda Starwaska
Build Your Own Art World 2025
PROGRAMME
AWITA’s conference this year was a chance for professionals to connect with leading voices from across the cultural industries and feel empowered to shape a more inclusive and innovative art world. We explored different leadership styles, broke down taboos around money, and showed how AI can support a more efficient working life.
Conference MC: Independent curator and writer Fatoş Üstek
Surprising Overlaps and New Possibilities
The day opened with a conversation between Turner Prize-winner Lubaina Himid CBE and sound and visual artist Magda Stawarska, whose decades-long collaboration explores memory, identity and shared authorship. Their session, moderated by curator and writer Fatoş Üstek, offers a rare insight into creative partnership across disciplines.
Leading from the Core
Dr Adele Patrick, founder of Glasgow Women’s Library; Anne Barlow, Director at Tate St Ives, Melanie Pocock, Artistic Director at Ikon Gallery; and Katy Wickremesinghe, Founder of The Wick, will lead a hands-on workshop exploring emotional literacy and care in leadership - essential tools for fostering more inclusive, human-centred institutions.
Not Your Assistant: Feminist Values in the Age of AI
From scheduling tools to chatbots, AI is quietly reshaping how we lead, organise, and relate to one another. Hilary Knight, Director of Change&, art historian and advisor Martina Batovic and Stefanie De Regel, Chief Development Officer of TAEX, will examine how AI can support a more efficient working life.
Money The Last Taboo: Unlocking Financial and Business Confidence
A panel of philanthropist Anastasia Bukhman, fashion designer Roksanda Ilinčić MBE, funds analyst Dahlia Dana and philanthropy and strategy advisor Leslie Ramos will tackle financial confidence, investment literacy and business skills needed for sustainable cultural leadership.
Honouring Inspiring Cultural Leaders
A ceremonial gathering in front of the Warburg Institute’s historic Coade Stone frieze of the Nine Muses - goddesses of the arts, sciences, and memory - will see AWITA honour nine cultural leaders as Future Muses. Selected by independent curator and AWITA Honorary Fellow 2025, Helen Nisbet.
Dr Adele Patrick, Anne Barlow, Melanie Pocock and Katy Wickremesinghe
