Culture Shift Symposium

Jennifer Taillefer is a freelance theatre artist working across design and production. A lifelong environmentalist she actively integrates green production guidance and protocols throughout her work, and has created shows to all three Theatre Green Books standards of production. She has created and facilitates a performing arts specific Carbon Literacy Training course, which has been adopted by clients across the UK in theatre, ballet, and opera.

As well as being a Certified Carbon Literacy Trainer, Jennifer is also a Sustainability Excellence Associate with the International Society of Sustainability Professionals. She uses this accreditation and training to assist arts organisations to embed environmental thinking and assessment into their processes and organisational culture. This includes writing and reviewing environmental policy, creating procurement policies, assessing emissions across scope 1-3, and increasing staff engagement through facilitating planning sessions.

Elise Foster Vander Elst has over two decades experience of creating cultural impact through exhibitions, events and action research. Elise is currently Head of Exhibitions and Environmental Impact Lead at the Design Museum. In this role she leads a team to deliver up to ten exhibitions and displays a year at the museum in London.

Most recently, her focus is on reformed museum practice for a green transition. She is a pioneer in the field of low carbon exhibition making, developing industry-leading tools for carbon measurement and evaluation. Elise currently leads the Design Museum’s new Environmental Responsibility consultancy arm, supporting UK museums to reflect on their current environmental approach and update sustainability strategies across their organisations.

Annabell is a project manager with extensive experience across a variety of sectors in the arts. Passionate about holistic approaches to international cultural collaboration, she has worked with institutions like the English National Opera, the Grimme-Institute, and the University of Cologne New York Office. She has devised academic conferences and co-authored essays on digital sovereignty, media aesthetics and the public sphere at the University of Cologne, from which she holds a Master’s in Media and Culture Studies.

As Project Manager for ETC, she is overseeing the award-winning Young Europe IV project as well as the European consortium projects STAGES, ACuTe, and New Voices.