Colombiage is run by a team of dedicated volunteers and professionals with diverse backgrounds, experiences and a shared passion and commitment to highlighting new developments in Colombian culture to the rest of the world.
Landa Acevedo-Scott, Festival Director & Music Programmer
After spending three years working as Business Development Manager at one of the world’s leading arts centres, the Barbican Centre, Landa decided to combine her 10 years of experience working in business and the arts to promote a very important cause – creating a meaningful dialogue between Colombia, the UK and mainland Europe. Since its inception in 2007, Colombiage has grown from strength to strength and is today considered to be one of the most influential festivals bringing Colombian arts and culture to the international stage. Landa also runs Tibor Jones Consulting, which specialises in developing and delivering curatorial and fundraising strategies for organisations in the creative industry. Landa graduated in European Business Management & French at Lancaster University (1998), spending her second and fourth year at leading business schools, ICADE Madrid and Ecole de Management de Lyon respectively. She brings to Colombiage her undeniable passion for film, music, literature and her native Colombia.
Laura Suarez Luna, Special Projects Coordinator
Laura began her career as a professional dancer in Colombia’s prestigious National Folklore Ballet in 2000, wining various national competitions. She then toured Europe in 2002 and 2004 taking part in festivals like “Festival du Confolens”, “International Reims Festival”, “Romans Dance Festival” and “Gorizia Dance Festival”, to name a few. Her passion for art, cinema and photography brought her to London where has lived since 2006. With a degree in Business, she is now putting her knowledge to the test in a cultural context by working on various different aspects of Colombiage including sponsorship, marketing and logistics.
Sandra Tabares, Film
Sandra studied in Birkbeck College, University of London where she graduated in Spanish and Latin American studies with a First Class Honours degree in 2007. She has been researching Latin American cultural studies since 2003 and has been directly involved with the Latin American film activity in London since 2004 when she joined the DLA Film Festival as Documentary Programme Director. She joined Colombiage in 2006 as Film Programmer. Between 2006 and 2007 Sandra carried out an academic research project, which culminated in a documentary focusing on the cultural representation and perception of Latin American films by Latin American and non-Latin American audiences. Sandra is currently pursuing further studies in world cinema and film-making with specific interest in new platforms while at the same time periodically holding film events at Birkbeck College.
Kevin Conroy Scott, Literature
After spending four years working as a literary agent for leading agencies of the likes of Conville & Walsh and AP Watt, Kevin decided to set up his own creative agency, Tibor Jones & Associates, where he represents novelists and non-fiction authors including Hisham Matar, who was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize for his debut novel In the Country of Men. He is also the editor of Screenwriter’s Masterclass, a collection of interviews published by Faber & Faber in 2005. Born in Chicago, Kevin began his career in the mailroom at New Line Cinema in Los Angeles before becoming the script editor at their London office. He earned his MA in Film History at Birkbeck College, University of London and has directed two short films.
Sylvia Ospina, Visual Arts, Theatre & Dance
Sylvia has 18 years experience in the arts and cultural world in France, Colombia and the UK and is currently the Manager of a leading London contemporary art gallery. Having been the Director of various theatres in Colombia including its largest, the Centro Cultural Teatro Municipal Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, she promoted leading national and international artists and focused on supporting young talent. She also created various international festivals that brought important figures to Colombia and promoted Latin American creators. In her early years, after graduating with a degree in Art History in Paris, she worked with the visual arts for many years in Europe. She has contributed to recent publications of Naked Punch, has been a nominator for the Prix Pictet on two occasions and advises various networks of performing artists in Latin America.
Daniel Cerejo, Education
Multi-instrumentalist, arranger/producer and singer, started his career as a clarinetist playing in Woodwind Bands. He has conducted both children and adults’ choirs in local churches and participated in various youth festivals, obtaining the second national prize in Portugal along with the opportunity to perform in Expo 98, Lisbon. In 2005, he started running workshops for children and teaching percussion and keyboard in schools around London. Between 2006-2008 he studied at Goldsmiths College University of London where he took a Diploma in Jazz and Popular Music Studies. He is currently the Music Director and keyboard player for Peyoti for President a band in with which he has toured many of the most important festivals and venues around Europe.
Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, The Colombiage Collective/ Literature
Oscar is a Colombian philosopher, writer and cultural critic based in London. A Lecturer at the University of London and a member of the Steering Group of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, he is also co-editor of the contemporary art & theory journal Naked Punch. His book Being against the World, a cutting-edge exploration of the relation between art, politics and rebellion, has just been published by Routledge/Cavendish. He has written and won prizes for his poetry and short fiction. At present he is working on his first novel, entitled Casa Babylon.
Thomas Jacquart, Design & Web
Thomas started his career in advertising and quickly enrolled in the digital (r)evolution back in 1999, designing websites for global brands such as Cartier and Dunhill. He then moved onto the client’s side, heading the Product Development team of a start up that soon became the world leading recruitment site for finance professionals. Thomas is currently his own boss, with French free classified advertising website wanteed.fr. He has a degree in marketing from the EM Lyon, one of France’s leading business schools, and is passionate about new media, cinema, comic books and graphic design.
Gerry Lyseight, Press
Gerry came to PR via a background of DJing, broadcasting and album compiling. He was appointed Head of Media Relations at Chris Blackwell’s Palm Pictures in 1998 and while there worked on CDs, DVDs and films featuring the likes of Baaba Maal, 1 Giant Leap, Da Lata, Sly + Robbie, (Bogota-based) Sidestepper and New York City Ballet until 2003 when he became freelance. Since 2003 Gerry has run successful campaigns for Ojos de Brujo, Jane Birkin, Lucha Libre London, Seu Jorge, Ethiopiques, The Big Chill and the annual La Linea Festival of Latin music from around the world among many others.
Juana Miranda, El CoLoCo
Juana is a Graphic and Textile designer living in London. She joined the Colombiage team as it represents the perfect opportunity to promote her country to the rest of the world. Colombia has always been the source of inspiration and energy for her personal work, highly characterised by a rich and diverse palette of colours that finds its origin in the Andean mountains of Colombia and the Caribbean sea. Leaving Colombia 7 years ago, Juana has lived in four different European cities (Paris, Milan, Madrid and Barcelona) where she has been able to combine her career as a designer with her passion for art, music, people and dance. Juana has participated with her ideas and sensibility in various cultural events in Italy and Spain.
Johanna Zuleta, El CoLoCo
Johanna is above all a passionate soul with a contagious energy and a strong sense for social commitment. Her character has been influenced by her upbringing in the Caribbean, as well as living in the US, France & the UK. She was born with a family heritage on literature and philosophy, which shaped her right from an early start. She studied International Business, while working ongoing on different causes. As for an instance, leading the foundation www.yocreoencolombia.com/en in London, as well she has been a Consultant, Project Manager and a Contemporary Dancer… Currently she directs a program for Aculco Radio on Spanish Poetry, transmited online. She is also known as a catalyst, turning dreams into successful outcomes. Moreover, she is a social butterfly whom works for a forthcoming integrated world.
Miriam Metliss, Alliances
Though born and bred in London, Miriam’s enthusiasm for travel, languages and culture has taken her as far as Latin America. Miriam graduated in 2007 from the University of Nottingham with a BA in Art History and Hispanic Studies, and has since returned to London, intent on becoming immersed in the rich arts and cultural scene which London has to offer. She has worked on separate occasions for Visiting Arts and has facilitated collaborative arts projects with Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts) and Latin American youth collective Nueva Generación. Whilst working full-time at Christie’s auction house, she teaches English at IRMO (Indo-American Refugee and Migrant Organisation). Miriam now intends to put her studies, travelling experiences, language abilities and passion for arts and culture into action with Colombiage.
Alfredo Lopez, Literature
Born on 29th March, 1977, in Fundación, one of the hottest corners of the Colombian-Caribbean coast, where he grew up listening to Vallenato, Cumbia, Salsa and Merengue in the streets until the idiosyncrasy and folklore of the Caribbean filtered into even the most remote of his cells, while news of McLuhan’s ‘global village’ arrived at his house – and at his head – through the demonic vessel, the television. At 18 years of age Alfredo crossed Colombia, from North to South, so that he could spend a year living in the small town of Florencia, close to the jungle. It was here that, purely by chance, he discovered a small book called Metaphysical Mediations, by José Ortega y Gasset, who persuaded him to follow the verbal path that was Plato’s undoing over two thousand years previously. Following this path, Alfredo arrived in Bogotá, where he studied at the National University of Colombia. Here, as well as reading the toils of Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Cioran, amongst others, he began to approach literature through the pages of Gabriel García Márquez, Milan Kundera, Philip Roth, Jorge Luís Borges, and many others, until he ended up a convert in creative writing. Alfredo has worked as a school teacher, he is an editor of a cultural magazine, and he can now be found in London, where recently arrived with the hope of at last learning the language of Stevenson, with the “ilusión de perro flaco” of being able to one day appreciate the madness of Hamlet in original English.
Zaida Rincon, Education/Film
Zaida is an Ecologist who has managed the development of several environmental educational programmes in the National Parks of Colombia and Brazil. She is passionate about using her skills and knowledge to educate children, and this has involved running and presenting ecology workshops and leading group eco tours in cloud and rain forest reserves. Her family has built very strong supportive relationships with several isolated communities in rural Colombia, and working with them, Zaida has developed a number of educational projects tied to the local environment. Zaida also has a great passion for art, film, music and literature.