EEA - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Head of Production
- Member of the Core Team
Ben Raine has an extensive background in many areas of production including music, theatre and large-scale outdoor spectaculars.
Ben Raine is our Head of Production. He has an extensive background in many areas of producing and production in the arts including music, theatre and large-scale outdoor spectaculars. He has worked with Emergency Exit Arts for over 20 years, his knowledge and skills cover producing many types of shows and installations and all areas of production management.
Ben has a musical background that includes over 20 years as an active touring musician and studio production. Ben composes music for many of EEA's shows as well as writing and producing music and soundscapes in a freelance capacity for other many companies.
Ben also freelances as a Creative Production Manager for various one-off projects and has worked with Tangled Feet, Dot Comedy, Kinetika and Nutkhut. He has worked throughout the UK, Europe, Australia and the Middle East.
Camille Dawson is a writer, director, performer and facilitator working in theatre, outdoor arts and film. She is motivated by writing provocative, personal and playful work that is highly interdisciplinary, fusing music, design, comedy, storytelling, and live art. She is the Artistic Director of Frisky Arts, but regularly co-creates productions with EEA and other multi-art performance companies. Her work will always be designed to provoke a change in perspectives and create positive social change in the communities it operates.
Chloe Osborne is an Artist, Facilitator and Creative Director with a track record of producing high impact participatory and outdoor art projects, curating transformative events and nurturing communities of practice.
With over 20 years experience in the socially engaged arts sector, she has built and nurtured a portfolio career, working at the intersection of participatory and public arts, community and development. This has encompassed institutional roles, strategic consultancy, self-initiated and community co-designed artistic collaborations, fundraising and partnership working across the UK & Internationally.
Craig is an experienced lighting designer in Theatre, dance and circus genres. He undertakes several lighting design projects a year and has been working professionally as a lighting designer for over 10 years.
Job Titles:
- CEO
- Manager
- Member of the Core Team
Daniel, a professional arts manager, joined EEA in 2012. He has worked with co-operatives, arts groups, and on Brazilian carnival events. He plays for Euphoria Steel Pan.
Daniel joined EEA in January 2012. He is a professional manager working in the arts, used to working with co-operatives, collectives and other lively groups of people. Before EEA he worked as a freelance Creative Producer specialising in widening participation.
He has worked on numerous Brazilian inspired carnival events, creative partnerships, as Development Officer for Arts Council England, and in international franchising for the Body Shop setting up new shops in new countries. He currently plays for Euphoria Steel Pan, having previously played, performed and managed Carnival Collective.
Job Titles:
- Creative Director, Producer and Arts Consultant
Deb Mullins has an extensive and distinguished career as a pioneer in outdoor and participatory arts. Her career spans close to five decades and she is one of the founder members of Emergency Exit Arts (1980) - now a member for life. She was Co-Artistic Director from 1991 -2007 and during her time as Artistic Director from 2007 - 2019, EEA became an ACE National Portfolio organisation and a leading light in outdoor arts with a unique approach to participation, learning and creative activism. During that time she worked across the UK and Europe in collaboration with hundreds of creative people: artists and participants; technicians and producers; partners and a multi-talented staff team.
Deb is now an independent creative producer, artistic director, evaluator and mentor. Her clients include: the Unwrapped Festival in Ireland, Creative Barking and Dagenham, Hackney Carnival, London Mela, Remarkable Productions, Invisible Needs, Coventry City of Culture, Arts Partnership Surrey and Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She is current Chair of Outdoor Arts UK, a board member for Scarabeus Aerial Theatre and a Director of Creative Force CIC based in East Sussex.
Di Jones's freelance career in community and celebratory arts has taken her the length and breadth of Britain. Highlights include designing and leading workshops to make a section of the huge carnival celebrating the opening of the Channel Tunnel; working with schools to create lantern installations in the National Theatre; many and varied gigs with Emergency Exit Arts, from comedy street performances with hand held fireworks to art sessions with parents and under 5 in Children's Centres, to making giant Ravana effigies for the London Hindu Community and many many workshops for carnivals and lantern processions.
Di is very experienced in making giant puppets, shadow puppetry, processional images and costumes with schools, communities and residential projects, and loves to work with people of all ages.
Her more recent experiments have led her to deliver exciting workshops exploring light and shadows with puppetry and storytelling, often upcycling ‘waste' everyday materials.
Di's own sculpture practice, exploring themes of anthropocentricism and utilising waste plastic as an art material, informs and is influenced by her work in community and education, and she considers it integral to all her activities.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Core Team
- Creative Heritage Producer
Eleanor has forged her own path in the creative industries, using her maverick approaches, determination and resilience to create a roller coaster of a career.
Eleanor has forged her own path through the creative industries for over 30 years, using her trademark maverick approaches, vitality, determination and resilience to carve out a roller coaster of a career. From discos under flyovers to toast as a form of religion. From hot tubs in Helsinki for homeless people, to hosting David Hockney's 80th Birthday party dressed as a dachshund, Eleanor's chutzpah has blown minds and enhanced lives.
In the noughties, as one of the team at Shunt, she revelled in co-creating the weekly curation and total rebuild of the 70,000 square feet of secret tunnels underneath London Bridge station. In 2009, as the Director of the Bradford Playhouse she 'pushed the boundaries of art more than most places dare'. - The Guardian. From 2010 - 2021, as Founder and Director of The Brick Box, she dreamt up and instigated innovative arts projects that challenged the status quo and reinvented blighted urban landscapes, using the Power of the People.
More recently, she toured a reclaimed, upcycled boat to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, the Hepworth and the streets of West Yorkshire with a group of artists seeking sanctuary, as an artist in residence brought a derelict Georgian mansion back to life , and made a large-scale interactive installation entirely out of cheese. (No cheese was wasted.)
She has worked with a myriad of organisations and companies, including (but not limited to) the RIBA, the Govt of Rio de Janeiro, Artichoke, the Baltic Circle Festival, Central Saint Martins, the National Theatre, Battersea Arts Centre, Shambala festival, Leeds Light Night, the National Science and Media Museum, Leeds 2023, Fierce Festival, UNION Arts, Compass Live Art, BD25, and eighteen London boroughs. She played a critical role in getting Bradford's City of Culture bid over the line and is excited to see the young'uns takeover.
She is delighted to have joined the team at Emergency Exit Arts and looks forward to new creative adventures in London town and beyond.
Gabi Spiro is a Creative Producer who works across socially engaged and community theatre. She is interested in how participatory arts can enable communities to make the change they want to see in the world.
She is currently the Producer (Exchange and Relationships) at leading youth theatre charity Company Three, where she manages all collaborative projects and industry sharing work, produces shows, and looks after external communications.
Previously, she worked as the Artist Support Producer at Camden People's Theatre and the Talent Development Producer at Boundless Theatre. Before that, she worked with Paines Plough, Barrel Organ, the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT), and on various freelance projects with small-scale companies.
She holds an MA in Creative Producing from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Core Team
- Project Manager
Hannah graduated in 2000 with a BA (hons) in Fine Art Sculpture. She then went on to work in TV production for a few years in the art department before starting to work in participatory arts in 2007. Hannah has been freelancing with Emergency Exit Arts since 2019, and has experience in organising large scale public events and community outreach.
Job Titles:
- Event & Production Coordinator
Jo Paul is a London based artist, designer and facilitator. Jo combines her work in the arts sector, designing for theatre, dance and outdoor arts, alongside participatory arts facilitation, coaching and training for arts organisations across the UK. Her visual arts practice is at the centre of her work.
Jo's designs have been seen in shows from Edinburgh Fringe to the Royal Opera House. She completed an MA in Scenography at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, London. Her personal art work has been exhibited in various galleries and spaces in the UK. Her work, mostly textile based three dimensional works and installations, often uses delicate fabrics or threads as a metaphor for fragility, vulnerability, grief and human connection.
As an arts facilitator Jo has worked with many groups of people, from children to elders both nationally and internationally.
Companies Jo has collaborated with as well as Emergency Exit Arts include; Candoco, Diverse City, Extant, Graeae, Heart FM/ Plusnet, Spare Tyre, East London Dance, Fevered Sleep and Proud & Loud Arts to name a few.
My name is Joe Fleming, I am a Performer, Multi-instrumentalist, Clown & Workshop Facilitator. I have worked in Outdoor Arts, Street Theatre, Music & Circus all my life. I love to play, explore, imagine, create & inspire. I want to make good strong art with meaning & purpose that is true & honest. Most of all, I love to laugh!
Job Titles:
- Executive Director
- Member of the Core Team
Jules, a UWE Fine Art graduate, joined in 2009. She manages operations, marketing, finance, and fundraising. Passionate about arts access, she is also a freelance artist.
Jules joined Emergency Exit Arts in 2009. She has experience of working for leading arts and events charities including the Royal Albert Hall and Action Space. Jules facilitates the running of the company, marketing and communications, finance, fundraising and programme support and anything and everything else! She is passionate about supporting the arts and artists to ensure the most people possible have access to free arts and culture.
Jules graduated from the University of West of England, Bristol (UWE) in 2006 with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art. She is also a freelance artist specialising in photography and photomicrography and has exhibited work in Bristol, London and Edinburgh. Trustee at Kazzum Arts.
Job Titles:
- Production and Event Manager
"I've always found EEA to be creative, responsive, resourceful and flexible with a highly skilled team. I consider them a great asset to the London outdoor arts sector."
Since graduating from the Glasgow school of art in 2017 Katie has been working as a freelance artist and maker; while predominantly working with wood she has experience in a multitude of different materials and is constantly learning and gaining new skills. She also has her own eclectic art practice; mainly producing public art projects or audio work in her spare time.
Job Titles:
- Event Manager, Creative Producer
Kellie is an experienced Event Manager, Creative Producer and Arts Programmer, with over 20 years' experience of creating large-scale outdoor events and cultural programmes. With a particular interest in free to access and co-created work, Kellie works across community, heritage and commercial settings, developing cultural policy and supporting individuals and organisations to bring their ideas to life.
Strongly connected to south-east London's creative community, Kellie was an integral part of the Culture team at Lewisham Council for a number of years and a Senior Producer of Lewisham's year as the Mayor of London's Borough of Culture. Most recently as Deputy Director of Deptford X, she was part of a small but impactful team who steered the organisation through its first year as an NPO and delivered the 2023 edition of the festival.
Kellie has led teams to produce many memorable moments for both participants and audiences, including over a decade of Blackheath Fireworks, where she first collaborated with the team at Emergency Exit Arts, who designed and launched some of the event's most spectacular displays.
Korren is passionate about accessible theatre and community arts. She is also a freelance director and arts practitioner.
Job Titles:
- Creative Director
- Director of Transform Project
Manuela Benini is a creative director, mass movement choreographer and environmental activist who specialises in developing, directing and delivering large scale projects all over the world.
Her unique creative process draws inspiration from co-creation, public engagement and uses outdoor arts as a tool for transformation.
She has worked in carnivals, outdoor spectacles and toured as a choreographer/performer for more than 20 years, having travelled extensively all over the world to develop outdoor arts internationally.
In the UK, she is currently the Co-Artistic Director of Hackney Carnival and Artistic Director of Hi! Street Fest with EEA and Historic England.
In 2022 she worked as the Artistic Director for Carnival of Lights with Chichester Festival Pier and Movement Director for From Tiny Acorns with EEA and Mandinga Arts as part of the Queen Platinum Jubilee Pageant.
Manuela is the Director of Transform Project developing carnival arts with participants with limited or no access to the arts in India, Brasil and Greece.
The Red Dress is a lifelong dance and photography project, where she performs in landscapes all over the world to raise awareness of human rights violations and climate change causes.
Manuela's past collaborators/clients include: Sadler's Wells Theatre, University of Oxford, Complicite Theatre, South Bank Centre, Walk the Plank, Arts Shape, Nutkhut, Akademi, City Arts, Glastonbury Festival, Intercultural Roots to quote a few.
Job Titles:
- IT Manager
- Member of the Core Team
Mark is our reliable and patient IT manager. He has been involved with EEA since 1987 and was General Manager of the company in the late 1990s. He also performs with and manages the Bollywood Brass Band and Crocodile Style, two of the longest running projects at EEA and now running independently of the company due to their huge success. He is a founder member of both groups (in 1987 and 1992 respectively), playing baritone sax. As the Bollywood Brass Band developed its stage presentation, he moved offstage to become the band's VJ, projecting video sequences from Bollywood films in sync with the band's live music.
Mark has been animating the street with music since starting his career playing on anti-nuclear demos in the early 1980s. His involvement with the International Festival of Street Music led to the birth of the Bollywood Brass Band through a collaboration with India's Shyam Brass Band.
He writes for world music magazine Songlines and has taught Music Business at Kingston University.
Job Titles:
- Founder
- Founder and Chairperson of the Caletock Estate Resident
Marsha is the founder and Chairperson of the Caletock Estate Resident Association - CERA.
Marsha Kinkaid is the founder and Chairperson of the Caletock Estate Resident Association - CERA, who with a great team, support the lives of the families and residents on the Caletock Estate in East Greenwich. The association was created with particular emphasis on those who feel under-represented, the disadvantaged and the vulnerable.
Some of CERA's successes come in the form of networking Marsha has been involved in with RBG Councillors, local government departments, charities, and local East Greenwich businesses; connecting and understanding the community and its needs; fundraising events and acquiring successful bids using various funding streams; and the planning and management of events on the Caletock Estate. Marsha was the founder of The Happy Mummy Project which focused on positive mental health and safe space for mothers with young children. The project was championed as significant by a local Councillor, due to the barriers Marsha was able to navigate through to make the project the success it became.
She is a wife, a mother and a civil servant by day, and on some nights, this singer songwriter is lead vocalist for a soul funk band who perform across the South of England. Marsha has extensive experience in the arts by way of music and has sung at some significant events such as the Greenwich Party in the Park 2022, Greenwich Get Together 2021 and 2022, Sparkle in the Park 2021, Olympics Games 2012 and has been fortunate to have toured and sung professionally with bands in the UK and across Europe.
It has been the community work in CERA that has brought Marsha to the Emergency Exit Arts - EEA.
She is keen to use her investigative mind, life experience and knowledge of real community needs to help achieve positive outcomes for all invested interest to any project. She is excited and thrilled to be asked to join the EEA Board of Trustees.
Martin is CEO of a UK based animation production studio and also runs an international marketing agency, specialising in creative IP and entertainment. With a strong commercial mind and a vibrant creative heart he has a proven track record in delivering excellent commercial returns for high quality creative content. He works closely with broadcasters, publishers, independent producers, musicians and artists to help them bring their talent and products to market. Martin is also director of charity he founded called THE LOWDE MUSIC TRUST (reg charity 1166852) for which he produces a large annual music festival in Hampshire called Lowde Fest. The Trust provides grants and scholarships for disadvantaged students, and provides music therapy services for severely and terminally ill children. Martin is delighted to be working with EEA as it continues his live long passion and love the arts and creative performance.
Mel is one of the founders and directors of Continental Drifts, an event management, music and performance agency.
Mel has been working in the arts for over 20 years.
She is one of the founders and directors of Continental Drifts, an event management, music and performance agency.
Mel's work has included the management of numerous shows and festivals including ON Blackheath, David Blaine's ‘Above the Below', BBC Music Live and Lollibop Festival.
Mel was selected as one of the creative producers for Festival 2012, curating a programme of International performance as part of the Mayor of London's ‘Summer Like No Other' season.
Mel has a level 5 qualification in event safety management.
Natasha Cossey is a visual artist, designer, creative practitioner and performer. She has worked professionally in collaborative participant-centred projects for the past 17 years. Natasha is passionate about creating highly visual, accessible artwork. She has developed a participatory practice that includes ambitious art programmes, community-led carnivals, processions, outdoors theatre shows and large-scale spectacles. Fuelled by the desire to create art that invites people to engage, play, share, celebrate and ultimately to enable participants to be more articulate with their own creative expression and activism.
Patrick has a broad range of skills and experience, including theatre set design, float design and manufacture, costume, prop making, physical and vocal performance.
Paul Bryce set up Lightfires in the spring of 2015 after ten years working freelance in special effects for a number of internationally acclaimed companies.
Since then, Lightfires has worked with producers, directors and choreographers creating large scale touring shows, spectacular firework displays, immersive pyro-animated performances and bespoke effects both small and large. Our passion for the science behind the effects has led us to work with a diverse range of arts practitioners with backgrounds in engineering, chemistry, physics and programming. In one year alone our work was enjoyed by live audiences totaling more than one million across four different countries and we burnt more than two ton of propane!
Pragya is a visual artist with 12 years experience in participatory, community arts, and wellbeing projects.
Roshni has been working in the arts, culture and heritage sector for over ten years in a range of museums and galleries.
Roshni Hirani (She/Her) has been working in the arts, culture and heritage sector for over ten years in a range of museums and galleries including Serpentine, Tate, Royal Museums Greenwich and the National Portrait Gallery. She began her career engaging young people and families with the arts and over the years her career evolved to working within human resources to increase access to careers within the arts and to support employees at work, which Roshni currently does at Serpentine. Having studied a fine art degree at the University of East London, Roshni has a huge passion for arts, creativity and increasing access to the arts for all.
During her time at the National Maritime Museum, Roshni loved working with Emergency Exit Arts to create a sea-themed van called the Maritime Memories Machine which visited a range of towns and cities across England to connect people with the sea through storytelling and creating art themed around the sea. Roshni joined the board because she supports the work of EEA, thoroughly enjoyed working with EEA all those years ago and is committed to being part of the team to help it develop into the future!
Rosie has worked in the culture and heritage sector for 15 years and has a background in marketing, business planning and strategic programme management.
She joined the board because she believes in the value art, culture and heritage can play in bringing communities together and improving wellbeing, and she is inspired by EEA's dedication to using creativity to produce extraordinary shared moments.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Core Team
- Creative Engagement Manager
Shanika's experience in outreach and creative engagement includes organisations such as Talawa Theatre Co, Tenda Arts and London Bubble.
Shanika has a BA (Hons) in Theatre with Media and Cultural Studies from Kingston University. Her background as an actor led to her discovering the joys and importance of participatory arts and she is passionate about making sure the arts sector is as diverse and representative of the people it serves as possible. In 2014 she graduated from EEA's flagship facilitator training course Creating Routes and now she both manages and delivers the course herself! For EEA, Shanika oversees our training development programmes as well as community engagement in the wider sense. As a freelance facilitator she has worked for organisations such as Talawa Theatre company, Tender Arts and Education, London Bubble, Rada, ICA and many more. She is also a playwright and has had work shown at Soho Theatre and Theatre 503.
Shermaine is a participatory and interdisciplinary artist and educator and has worked in the cultural and education sector for over 20 years.
Sita is a multi-disciplinary artist with a keen interest in increasing representation of marginalised communities.
Veronica joined the board in 2023 and is a Festival Producer for The Great Exhibition Road Festival.
Job Titles:
- Finance Officer
- Member of the Core Team
Yeu-Lai manages the accounting and finances of the organisation and she also has a background as an artist and creative.