Who We Are

The Dissonant Futures collective came together during the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, starting as online conversations and meetings around art, VR and the topic of climate grief.

See our manifesto for how we’re working together. The collective is currently working on the first project, the ACE-supported Loss and Found, together with a number of collaborators. Get in touch if you’re interested in working with us on future projects.

Loss and Found collective members

EMMA ADAMS

Emma is a playwright, screenwriter and dramaturge from Bradford. She’s written plays to be performed in houses, libraries, swimming pools and graveyards (and on stages too). Current work includes Hoax, a new play about remorse and magic, in development with Leeds Playhouse and a new TV comedy-drama with Longboat Pictures.

BAFF AKOTO

is a London-based artist and filmmaker whose work has been exhibited at London’s ICA and at the BFI’s Experimenta strand. With mentoring from John Akomfrah and Asif Kapadia, Akoto's work explores the potential of VR/AR and how the digital revolution might avoid the same colonial prejudices, exclusions and inequalities. Akoto is a fellow of BOM (Birmingham Open Media) in Birmingham.

DAVID ALEXANDER

is a film director, currently developing his first feature film with the BFI and producer Yaw Basoah/Dark Pictures. David Alexander has also done work for Nowness, such as the short film Black Star: Breathe and recently, his short film Phoenix made for Random Acts, premiered on Channel 4.

REBECCA KENYON

is a documentary filmmaker known for her Film London short Holding Space, and the feature Something You Can Call Home. She is a 200-hour trained yoga teacher and also works as an end-of-life doula, having trained with Living Well Dying Well. She is now based in Spain.

LINE LANGEBEK

is a writer, translator and lecturer. She is currently working on several commissioned feature films with the BFI and DFI as well as European film companies. She's a co-founder of Library of Change and Raising Films, an organisation campaigning for change for parents and carers in the film and TV industry.

TARNIA MASON

has a background in education and social support. Her main area of interest is in the design and delivery of campaigns and programmes aiming to create greater equity and connection within health and social care and education. She holds an MSc in Psychology of Education from UCL and is a trustee of community arts charity, Arts Bridge. She has contributed several written pieces to the Library of Change.

GUDRUN SOLEY SIGURDARDOTTIR

is an Icelandic performance artist, director and teaching artist based in Glasgow. She is currently leading multiple projects across Scotland, including ‘In the hush of the gloaming’ with Imaginate; engaging young people in a dynamic and emotive exploration of film and performance in response to the ecological crisis.

SARAH TICHO

has worked across the interdisciplinary arts, academia, healthcare and immersive technology. She is the founder of Hatsumi, a VR experience enabling people to visually communicate pain and emotion using 3D drawing, and producer at Explore Deep - a meditative VR experience controlled by breathing. She has trained as a death doula with Living Well Dying Well.

ANNA FIRBANK

is a creative producer of cultural and technology-based projects, she has a background in science communication. Previously, she has supported the development of nine immersive VR projects for Storytrails, interdisciplinary programmes through her role in the Live Programme team at Wellcome Collection as well as working as a Producer for Marshmallow Laser Feast on their installation We Live in an Ocean of Air.

CLARE MOLONEY

has devised and delivered projects across multiple art forms including visual art, live art, digital media, text and heritage, working with high profile art organisations, grassroot community groups, charities, schools, local authorities and museums and galleries. She has led ambitious projects for Canal & River Trust, engage (National Association for Gallery Education), London Borough of Hackney, VocalEyes, University of East London, and Tate Galleries.

Regional Partners:

Collaborators

Angela YT Chan

is an independent researcher, curator and artist. Her work reconfigures power in relation to the inequity of climate change, through self-archiving, rethinking geographies and speculative fiction. Since 2014, Angela has produced curatorial projects and workshops as Worm: art + ecology, collaborating with artists, activists and youth groups, and co-directs the London Science Fiction Research Community. Angela is also a research consultant, having worked in international climate and cultural policy and on climate and sustainability projects for major cultural institutions.

KINDA STUDIOS

are a neuro-aesthetics studio exploring the intersection of everyday experiences with neuroscientific theory, helping the collective explore the qualitative insight generated by workshops participants & to help us apply neuroscientific principles to the design of the Sound Memorial.

CAMILO TIRADO

is a percussionist, composer and sound designer whose work covers a variety of musical cultures, from Indian classical to electroacoustic music via dub & reggae. He has toured with Talvin Singh, James Holden, Terry Riley, Sam Lee & Maverick Sabre and has worked with Nitin Sawhney and Anoushka Shankar. In 2016, Camilo released ‘Outdoor Museum of Fractals’ with electronic musician James Holden on Border Community Records. Camilo is also a key member of the internationalist music collective, Kefaya, and the music trio Pataphysical, whose 2nd LP, ‘Hapticality’, was released earlier this year on Good Morning Tapes, to much critical acclaim.

ANDRES SAENZ DE SICILIA

is a British-Mexican sound artist, musician and philosopher. Andrés’ works and performances have been commissioned/featured in programs worldwide, such as the British Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, Café Oto, Whitechapel Gallery and Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Roma. He has worked collaboratively with different artists and activists, including Assemble, Hito Steyerl, Fevered Sleep, Walter Maoili, Lewes Downs UNESCO Biosphere, Cooperativa Cráter Invertido and Leah Millar. His music has been released both under his own name and as Pataphysical (together with Camilo Tirado and Matt Linares) on record labels including 12th Isle, Good Morning Tapes and Villa Lontana Records.

KEVIN LOGAN

is an artist, researcher, and educator based in London. His work engages cross-disciplinary fields and incorporates installation, sound, moving-image, and performance. Kevin has exhibited and performed internationally, and his audio-visual works have been screened worldwide, including at ICA, London; Moscow International Film Festival; the Pompidou Centre, Paris. Kevin has worked collaboratively with a variety of art practitioners and organisations throughout his career and embraces socially engaged practices. In 2018 he completed a PhD with the research organization CRiSAP (Creative Research into Sound Arts Practice), University of the Arts London.

KAIXI YANG

Kaixi, pronounced Kai-Shee, is a polymathic artist from Auckland, New Zealand. Her current media are abstract calligraphy, singing, installation, and the co-creation of a solarpunk collective called Talking Animals, comprised of ENTITY, a sustainable design consultancy, and NOT BAD LAB, its innovation hub. She has participated in the AR House LA residency, as well as being inducted into Apple's Women in Science and Engineering Mentorship program, and Interact's Fellowship for mission driven technologists.

ELLIE HARRISON

leads the GRIEF SERIES - collaborative projects with artists working in performance/design/photography/installation/sculpture, which aim to create safe spaces where grief can be discussed/expressed through a range of empowering creative practices.

ANNA MAUERSBERGER

is an Educational Artist, Experience Designer and Facilitator working at the intersection of arts, technology, education and social activism. She is a certified Ontological Coach, Wilderness trainer and soon-to-be-certified Trauma Therapist. Previously, she worked for the Berlin-based film production company UFA, where she started the award-winning educational initiative Mesh Collective, a pioneer project in the field of digital, extracurricular youth education. As Founder of HeartWire, Laboratory for Soulful Civic Education, she seeks to combine the "best of all worlds” by weaving psychological insights, body based theories and indigenous wisdom into entertaining, accessible and yet challenging formats for all types of audiences.

MIKKEL KRAUSE FRANTZEN

(b. 1983), postdoc at the University of Copenhagen, literary critic at the Danish newspaper Politiken. The author of several works, including Going Nowhere, Slow—The Aesthetics and Politics of Depression (2019) and Klodens Fald (2021), and his work on mental health, grief, and ecology has appeared in boundary 2, Third Text, Theory, Culture, and Society, and Los Angeles Review of Books.