About >
Erin Bell joined as a Trustee in October 2018. Erin is a consultant and an executive coach with a particular focus on the arts. Prior to this she worked for over twenty-five years in global financial services (investment management), at The Capital Group, concentrating on investment and development, and before then, in comics and fashion. Erin has been involved with The Whitechapel Gallery in a variety of areas – The Commissioning Council, Art Icon Committee, as well as being a co-sponsor of the Summer Boot Camps. She is also a member of the Council of the Serpentine Gallery, where she sits on the Exhibitions Committee, and a patron of other arts’ organisations. Erin has a BSc from LSE and received her MBA from London Business School.
Dr David Dibosa is Director of Research and Interpretation at Tate where he leads the development of a thriving research community within and beyond the organisation. David also supports Tate’s interpretation team in engaging audiences in the galleries as well as online. He is a key representative of Tate across the museum and academic sectors.
Prior to this role, David was Reader of Museology at University of the Arts London, having taught at universities in London for more than twenty years and regularly lecturing around the world. He is co-author of Post-Critical Museology: Theory and Practice in the Art Museum (Routledge, 2013). He trained as a curator, after receiving his first degree from Girton College, Cambridge. He was awarded his PhD in Art History from Goldsmiths College, University of London.
Alongside being Chair of Trustees at Whitechapel Gallery, David is also a Trustee of Art Fund. David’s television appearances include BBC One’s Big Painting Challenge, in which he was a judge. He is also currently a presenter for Art on the BBC, showing on BBC 4.
Jonny Kanagasooriam works in BBC Marketing & Audiences across BBC Radio, Music and Arts. Previously he was Creative Strategy Director for publishing group Dazed Media and creative services division, Dazed Media Studios. He has also held planning roles at advertising agencies McCann Erickson and J. Walter Thompson. Jonny is a 2017/18 BBC Clore Fellow and a trustee for the UK music charity, Orchestras For All and dance organisation, Hofesh Shechter Company.
Samantha Leonor Renovales Hill has over 21 years’ experience as a secondary school art teacher and over fourteen years as Head of Art at St. Paul’s Way Trust School in Tower Hamlets. Samantha also co-manages the THAT network (Tower Hamlets Artist Teacher network), which aims to support art departments across Tower Hamlets and art teachers as educators and artists. Samantha is currently working on her MA at Goldsmiths in Artist Teacher and Contemporary Practices.
A leading employment law solicitor with international law firm Rudnick Brown, Nicola Kerr was appointed as a Trustee in 2016.
Melanie Manchot is a London-based visual artist working with photography, film/video and installation as a performative and participatory practice. Her projects respond to specific sites and public spaces or particular communities to explore individual and collective identities. Recent and forthcoming solo exhibitions include Centre Pasquart, Biel (2019), MAC VAL, Paris (2018), Parafin, London (2018), Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne (2016), fig-2 at the ICA, London (2015), Galerie M, Bochum (2015), Toronto Photography Festival (2012), Nuit Blanche, Paris (2011) and Whitechapel Gallery, London (2010). Recent group exhibitions include: Art Night, London (2017), Marl Video Art Award, Skulpturen Museum Glaskasten, Marl (2016), Group Therapy, FACT, Liverpool (2015), The Rhythm Is…, Museum Folkwang, Essen (2014). Manchot was shortlisted for the Jarman Award in 2017.
Sarah Miller, Luxury Brand Ambassador of The Wall Street Journal, runs Sarah Miller and Partners, an independent agency that creates brand strategies and content (digital and print) for a range of luxury and lifestyle brands. She was founding Editor-in-Chief of Condé Nast Traveller UK, and also launched Condé Nast Traveller in China. On leaving Condé Nast she was appointed European Editor of Travel + Leisure. Based in London, she has worked extensively with fashion, arts, design, lifestyle and travel opinion formers from around the globe, and is an Honorary Fellow of The Royal College of Art. Sarah also edits for a range of internationally renowned publishing houses. Recent projects include Studio 54 (Rizzoli, New York), London Uprising: Fifty Fashion Designers, One City and a Los Angeles companion title LA Fashion. She was also the author of Where Architects Sleep, (all published by Phaidon).
Ian Pleace is a Chartered Accountant who chairs the Gallery’s Finance Sub Committee, having joined the Board in October 2021. He qualified with Deloitte, where he had a 17-year career, focused on audit and corporate finance assignments for a range of clients in the publishing and media sectors. From 2015 to 2019 he was the Director of Finance at Goldsmiths, University of London, and was previously the Director of Finance for BBC Nations & Regions. He is currently a director of i2 Media Research, the National Tramway Museum Society and Relate. He has previously served as an independent member of the Audit Panel of the London Borough of Lewisham
Alex Sainsbury (born 1968) joined Rear Window – a small group organising contemporary art exhibitions in found spaces in London – in 1995. In 1997 he co-founded the arts charity Peer. He set up a two year gallery project, 38 Langham Street, in 2001, and from 2005 directed Raven Row, a non-profit exhibition centre in Spitalfields which opened in 2009. He also established the grant-making charity Glass-House Trust in 1993, co-initiating various projects related to child development and social housing, and most recently MayDay Rooms, a social resource at 88 Fleet Street, holding historical material linked to social movements and experimental culture.
