The Culture for Resilience Forum 2024 will gather representatives from municipalities, regional, national, and local public authorities, cultural institutions, academics, professionals in the realms of culture and social resilience, and knowledge intermediaries from the Baltic Sea Region.

Get to know our speakers’ lineup.

Tiina-Katrina Kaber

EnterTrainer Tiina-Katrina Kaber works as a moderator at the Forum. She is fascinated with all things learning and growth related. Combining highly engaging teambuilding methods with concepts of change management and neuroscience in learning, she delivers events that engage, inspire and create a safe environment for learning. Running the show at EnterTraining and Catalyst Estonia, her main focus is on developing teams using the concept of entertraining: a combination of engagement, analysis and just the right amount of new info. Additionally, she often takes the stage at different events as a speaker, host and energizer, keeping boredom levels down and engagement levels up!

Jaakko Blomberg

Keynote on 8 May and workshop (Jakobstad) on 7 May

Jaakko Blomberg is an activist, producer, and executive director of the association Helsinki Urban Art. He specializes in co-creation, placemaking and urban art. For more than ten years he has been creating community-based events and art projects that use urban spaces in new ways, bring people together and simply make life more fun. These include, for example, a national flea market day, setting up a table for a thousand people to eat in the middle of a street, a day of open saunas and pop-up restaurants. He has also created the Pasila street art district in Helsinki and developed former industrial areas and other buildings for cultural use. He likes to think of the cities as playgrounds, full of resources that can be used to create something new and exciting.

www.jaakkoblomberg.fi

Stefanie Raab

Stefanie Raab is an architect, moderator, strollogist and the CEO of coopolis – a planning office for cooperative urban development. She has been supporting and advising the cultural and creative industries for over 20 years. She is the co-founder of the Kreativnetz Neukölln, Kreative Deutschland and the Berlin and nationwide funding network for cultural and creative industries. Stefanie is a supporting member of the Community Real Estate Network and the Future Places Network. Currently working as an advisor in ‘Creative support – compact help for solo self-employed people’ and as a project leader of the “Kiez academy” in Berlin Neukölln.

www.coopolis.de

Ramon Marrades

Ramon Marrades is an economist and urbanist with a passion for port cities, public spaces, culture, and innovation. He is currently Director at Placemaking Europe and strategy advisor to a number of cities and large-scale development projects. He holds a BA in Economics, an MSc in Economics and Geography, an Executive MSc in Cities and has been a researcher at different universities such as the Western Sydney University (Australia). He received the Spanish Social Entrepreneur Award in 2012 and co-authored four books and published more than a hundred columns on urban issues in some of the main Spanish newspapers. Ramon is co-editor of the book “Our City? Countering Exclusion in Public Space” (2019).

Monika Arczyńska

Monika Arczyńska is a co-founder of A2P2 – consulting and design company, providing services in participatory design of districts and public spaces in major Polish cities, masterplanning and consultancy in pre-planning stage of public buildings. She studied at Gdansk University of Technology and TU Delft. Her PhD thesis was focused on the relations between consumer society and sustainable housing. Adjunct professor at Gdansk University of Technology, she also lectures at postgraduate courses. In 2006-2017 she was employed with Heneghan Peng Architects and involved in designing public buildings (ie. Grand Egyptian Museum and Palestinian Museum awarded with Aga Khan Award). Contributor to a number of architectural magazines including Czech ‘INTRO’.

Łukasz Pancewicz

Łukasz Pancewicz is a co-founder of A2P2, member of TUP (Polish Urban Planners Association) and ISOCARP. Łukasz graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at Gdansk University of Technology (MArch & PhD). He is an urban designer with experience in Poland, Ireland and USA and a consultant for a number of organizations including the World Bank and the National Intitute for Planning Policy and Housing. In 2013-2016 he was a Chief Planner at Municipal Planning Office of Lodz. He has been lecturing at University of Technology and Gdansk University since 2009. His professional and academic interests are public participation in planning and urban design. He collaborates with magazines such as ‘Architektura-Murator’, ‘Architektura i Biznes’ and ‘Autoportret’. In 2011-2012 he participated in mid-career development programme at MIT.

Agnieszka Wołodźko

Agnieszka Wołodźko is an artist, curator, and cultural researcher, President of the Foundation „Cultures Beyond Culture”. She writes text about contemporary art and culture such as “Encounters and Microutopias. Participatory art in Scandinavia in 1990-2010”. Furthermore she produces art in public space, engaged art, photography, installation, ceramics, sound works and actions, as well as implements workshops for various social groups.

Taiju Kiesilä

Taiju represents The City of Espoo Cultural Unit, Partnerships and Promoting Culture. City of Espoo works as the Chair of the UBC Cultural Cities Commission and City of Kaunas will continue working as the Vice Chair, for the years 2024-2025. The UBC Cultural Cities Commission (CCC) promotes and develops tools for the cultural field to enhance professionalism in the field. In addition, it creates strategic partnerships with central national and international bodies dealing with policy making in the cultural field and stimulates third parties to provide research on cultural issues that are important for the local level.

Tiina Kasvi

Tiina Kasvi is a Cultural Manager, representing the City of Espoo Cultural Unit, Partnerships and Promoting Culture.

Bo-Anders Sandström

Bo-Anders Sandström is the Deputy Rector of the Wava Institute, an art institute for children and young people, in Jakobstad/Pietarsaari which has now been merged with the city’s two liberal adult education institutions. In his role, he oversees various educational programs, including Basic Education in Art, primarily designed for children and young people, and Liberal adult education institutes such as adult education centres and folk high schools. He also has prior experience as a project manager for SKAPA in the Jakobstad region.