Stuart Hall Foundation announces changes to leadership team

We are pleased to have appointed Angela McRobbie as our new Chair and Martha Awojobi as our new Vice Chair.

Angela and Martha will lead our Board of Trustees following the tenures of Gilane Tawadros and Paula Kahn, founding members of the Stuart Hall Foundation who step down after a decade of dedicated service.

(From left) Angela McRobbie, Martha Awojobi

“We are delighted to welcome Angela McRobbie and Martha Awojobi as Chair and Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees. They bring deep knowledge of Professor Stuart Hall’s intellectual commitments, wide-ranging experience across the cultural and third sectors, and dynamic perspectives on strategic leadership as the Foundation enters its second decade of work.”

Orsod Malik, Executive Director of the Stuart Hall Foundation

“Stuart Hall was one of the great thinkers of the post-war period. As an academic he believed in breaking down barriers of access. The Foundation has done so much to reflect the values that Stuart upheld, social justice, social inclusion, the necessity of extending the politics of difference, diversity and equality. His contribution to cultural life remains as important now as it has been at so many key turning points over the decades. I look forward to working with the team.”

Angela McRobbie, New Chair of the Stuart Hall Foundation

“It is an honour to step into the role of Vice Chair, supporting the team to deliver on an incredible strategy at a time when political education is needed more than ever. The Foundation’s work brings together those who are building knowledge from the margins across so many different sectors, giving anyone who is interested in building a socially just society an entryway into a community where rich and creative forms of knowledge are being produced.”

Martha Awojobi, New Vice Chair of the Stuart Hall Foundation

(From left) Gilane Tawadros, Paula Kahn

“It has been a great honour to have worked closely with Gilane and Paula. As founding members of the Foundation, their energetic and steadfast leadership over the years has been instrumental in shaping the organisation and securing its strongest position to date. We are deeply grateful for their insight, generosity, and commitment, all of which will be greatly missed.”

Orsod Malik, Executive Director of the Stuart Hall Foundation

“It has been a huge honour to be a founding Trustee and Chair of the Stuart Hall Foundation. Over the past decade, the Foundation has grown and flourished, building on Stuart Hall’s unique legacy as one of our most important public intellectuals and educators. Our Peer Network of scholars, fellows and activists has grown to 150 individuals working in different fields across a number of national and international institutions. Our celebrated public programme attracts a growing audience each year, creating vital spaces for people to think collectively, connect with each other and debate the pressing questions of our time. It has been a privilege to work with the Stuart Hall Foundation’s brilliant and dedicated team, led by Orsod Malik, and its excellent Board of Trustees (past and present) whose care and passion for the work of the Foundation has enabled it to develop into a critically important and necessary organisation. 

“I am excited about the future plans of the Foundation and to welcoming our wonderful new Chair Angela McRobbie and new Vice Chair Martha Awojobi whose skills, experience and knowledge will be invaluable to steering the organisation over the coming years. In an increasingly fractured world, the role of the Stuart Hall Foundation has never been more urgent, bringing people together from different backgrounds and generations to work towards a more just, equal and humane society and I shall remain an ardent supporter and passionate champion of its essential work.”

Gilane Tawadros, Outgoing Chair of the Stuart Hall Foundation

“I have been proud to be a Trustee for the last 10 years, working closely with Gilane, Catherine and the family and our wonderful Trustees and staff. We have been through rocky and exhilarating times but were always clear about our vocation, to build an organisation which would take Stuart’s thoughts and values into a quickly evolving world. However different that world looks sometimes, the underlying insights and ideas of Stuart remain deeply relevant. I hope to see the Foundation’s growing success in building an ever-expanding cohort of artists and activists who champion and develop Stuart’s work.”

Paula Kahn, Outgoing Vice Chair of the Stuart Hall Foundation

The Foundation is inspired by the life’s work of Professor Stuart Hall in the interlocking worlds of activism, academia and the arts. Hall’s work was characterised by its breadth and interdisciplinary nature, spanning cultural studies, media theory, political analysis, and the study of race and identity. 

At a time when people are increasingly turning to Hall’s work to provide guidance and insight into the present conjuncture, the Foundation operates as a robust and expanding charitable organisation popularising critical thought and reshaping public discourse. 

The Foundation focuses on achieving a more progressive and just society through public education, artistic and intellectual initiatives.

Professor Angela McRobbie is a Fellow of the British Academy and Professor Emeritus at Goldsmiths University of London. She is also an Honorary Professor at Birmingham University. She was a student at the Birmingham University Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies from 1974-1977. 
 
Martha Awojobi is the CEO of JMB and curator of Uncharitable Political Education. Martha supports the charity sector to move beyond performative diversity gestures and grapple with the legacy of racism, imperialism and colonialism that is the heart of the sector; working with organisations to understand racism, reflect on their relationship to white supremacy and work towards an anti-racist vision for a liberated future. Martha is also on the advisory board of Kids of Colour and is a Trustee of Civic Power Fund. 

Gilane Tawadros is the Director of the Whitechapel Gallery. She was formerly Chief Executive of DACS and Co-Director of the Art360 Foundation. She was the founding Director of the Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva) in London, chaired by Professor Stuart Hall, which, over a decade, achieved an international reputation as a ground-breaking cultural agency at the leading edge of artistic and cultural debates nationally and internationally. She has written extensively on contemporary art and curated a number of international exhibitions. She has worked with and advised a number of leading international cultural organisations including Tate, Hayward Gallery, Camden Arts Centre, International Foundation Manifesta, Venice Biennial and Forum for African Arts. She is Chair of the Stuart Hall Foundation, Trustee of the Stuart Croft Foundation and Member of the Advisory Committee for the Yale Center for British Art. Her anthology The Sphinx Contemplating Napoleon: Global Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Difference was published by Bloomsbury in 2021. 

Paula Kahn worked with Stuart as a Trustee of Iniva eventually becoming Acting Chair. She then became Chair of Camden Arts Centre. She was Chief Executive of Longman, the international education publisher and subsequently MD of Phaidon Press. Currently Chair of the Advisory Board of the Wellcome Collection she was formerly chair of NCL NHS and MTVH Housing Trust, a trustee of Cripplegate Foundation and Treasurer of Association of Charitable Foundations. 

Orsod Malik is a curator of exhibitions and archives, writer, independent researcher, and the Executive Director of the Stuart Hall Foundation. He also serves as a Trustee at The Common Guild, a visual arts organisation in Glasgow. Malik’s work explores transnational cultural and political entanglements in historical narratives to consider the possibility of shared histories. He is particularly interested in the relationship between social movements, aesthetics, and public education, and their combined role in shaping collective identities. Malik has curated exhibitions and developed programmes for several cultural organisations including, the Stuart Hall Foundation, International Curators Forum (ICF), Black Cultural Archives, Institute of International Visual Arts (iniva), Prince Claus Fund and the British Council.

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