A People is Missing is a curatorial platform on contemporary art founded by art theorists, filmmakers and scholars Aliocha Imhoff and Kantuta Quirós. Together they have been developing a research project calling for a new ecology of knowledge and are currently writing Qui parle? à l’ère de l’Anthropocène..

Philippe Aghion is a Professor at the Collège de France, INSEAD, and LSE. His research focuses on the economics of growth and innovation. With Peter Howitt, he pioneered the Schumpeterian Growth paradigm, as explained in Endogenous Growth Theory. Philippe Aghion recently published The Power of Creative destruction with C. Antonin and S. Bunel.

Bashir M. Al-Hashimi is an Arm Professor in Computer Engineering and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences at King’s College London. Acknowledged internationally for energy-efficient computing and systems engineering, he founded the Arm-ECS industry-academia centre of research excellence. He received the IET Faraday Medal in 2020 and CBE for services to engineering and industry.

Anthony Anaxagorou is a British-born Cypriot poet, writer, publisher, and poetry educator. His published work includes several volumes of poetry, non-fiction and a collection of short stories. His second poetry collection, After the Formalities, was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2019. In 2020 he published How To…Write It with Merky Books (a Penguin Books imprint curated by Stormzy).

Anthony Anaxagorou – © – Alessandro Furchino Capria

Shuk Ying Chan grew up in Hong Kong and has a PhD in political theory from Princeton. Her book project, Postcolonial Global Justice, explores the moral and political implications of decolonisation. Drawing on the normative visions and Third World anticolonial thinkers in the era of formal decolonisation, the project aims to yield a set of action-guiding principles that help navigate the self-determination and equality in contemporary global politics.

Renate Christ is a trained biologist who has worked with UN organisations for 20 years, focusing on Climate Change and Sustainable Development. She held the position of Secretary of the UNEP/WMO Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), prior to which she worked for the Austrian Ministry of Environment, the European Commission, and several Universities.

Performance, installation, and film artist Jasmina Cibic uses her art to explore Soft Power. She represented Slovenia at the 55th Venice Biennial with her project ‘For Our Economy and Culture’. Her exhibitions include MOMA New York, Foundation PHI Montreal, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art. Jasmina won the Jarman Award this year, as well as the MAC International Ulster Bank and B3 Biennial of the Moving Image Award.

Tania de Montaigne is a novelist, journalist and actress. She notably published Patch, and the Claudette Colvin biography Noire which won the Prix Simone Veil in 2015 and was adapted for theatre by Stéphane Foenkinos at the Théatre du Rond de Point. She won the 2009 prix du meilleur roman des Arts afro-caribéens for Les caractères sexuels secondaires. Tania also performed in the theatre adaptation of her essai L’Assignation : Les Noirs n’existent pas.

Tania de Montaigne – © – JF PAGA

Philippe Descola is an anthropologist who has contributed to the ethnology of Amazonia. He is an Emeritus Professor at the Collège de France, Director of Studies at the EHESS and visiting scholar at Cambridge. He has published extensively on his research on the Achuar of Ecuador and on the comparative analysis of relations between humans and nonhumans. He is a Commander in the French Legion of Honour, and was awarded the CNRS Gold Medal.

Philippe Descola – © – Collège de France 

Marcus du Sautoy is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford where he holds the prestigious Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science. He writes for The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, and The Guardian and contributes to television and radio on BBC 4, Radio 4, and BBC2. He was awarded an OBE and the Berwick Prize for his contributions to science.

Bobby Duffy is Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Policy Institute. He has worked across most public policy areas, including being seconded to the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit. He wrote The Perils of Perception – Why we’re wrong about nearly everything on misperceiving social realities, and Generations – Does when you’re born shape who you are?, on generational challenges and myths.

Bobby Duffy – © – King’s College London

Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh is Professor in Migration and Refugee Studies at UCL, where she is Co-Director of The Migration Research Unit, Director of the Institute of Advanced Studies’ Refuge in a Moving World research network, and co-Editor of the Migration and Society journal. Her work focuses on displacement in the Middle East and North Africa.

Daniel Innerarity is Professor in Political Philosophy, “Ikerbasque” researcher at the University of the Basque Country, and director of the Instituto de Gobernanza Democrática. He is part-time Professor at the European University Institute. He wrote Ethics of hospitality, The democracy in Europe, Politics in the Times of Indignation, and A Theory of Complex Democracy.

Zoe Laughlin is co-founder and Director of the Institute of Making. Mixing science, art, and material engineering, she creates experiments and public exhibitions, in partnership with the Tate Modern, Hayward Gallery, Science Museum and V&A. Her work is part of the Design Museum’s permanent collection. Zoe is a panellist on BBC’s Kitchen Cabinet and appears regularly on ITV’s This Morning.

Zoe Laughlin – © – Joey McGorty

Catherine Lucas is a Franco-Belgian composer and musician. She is part of the bands Fanfarlo, Orlando, Innerspace Orchestra, and currently singer/songwriter of the psychedelic pop quintet Vanishing Twin with whom she released 3 albums: Choose Your Own Adventure, The Age of Immunology, and Ookii Gekkou. She is also a scholar in History and Philosophy of Science.

Catherine Lucas – © – Vanishing Twin

Mariana Mazzucato is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London and Founding Director of the Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose. She is the acclaimed author of The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths, and The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy. She advises policy makers worldwide on innovation-led, inclusive, and sustainable growth.

➡️ Visit her website

Douglas McMaster is a chef, restaurateur, Master Chef UK finalist, and pioneer of the zero-food waste movement. He opened Silo, the world’s first zero-waste restaurant in Brighton and now London. It serves pure, natural food, on recycled plates and furniture, and creates its own compost. He launched the Zero Waste Cooking School in 2020.

Marie Merlet is a French DJ, composer, and multi-instrumentalist, and selector for Soho Radio London (Little Trouble Girls) who exclusively plays records involving women. After joining Laetitia Sadier’s Monade, Marie became part of the electronic duo Zooey, and mystical band Malphino. Marie began recording songs under the moniker Iko Chérie in 2013.

Marie Merlet – © – DR

Cedric Monzali is a Franco-Italian professional climber and musician (percussions). Taught by Sebastien Albert, gold medal winner of The Conservatoire De Paris, he has worked with Julien Gasc and HAHA Sounds Collective.

Cédric Monzali – © – DR

Hélène Neveu Kringelbach is a social anthropologist, and an Associate Professor in African Studies at UCL, where she convenes the MA programme in African Studies. She has previously conducted research on dance in Dakar, Senegal. Her monograph, Dance Circles: Movement, Morality and Self-Fashioning in Urban Senegal (Berghahn Books, 2013) was awarded the 2013 Amaury Talbot Prize in African Anthropology by the Royal Anthropological Institute. More recently she has been researching transnational marriage between Senegal, France and the UK, and binational marriage in France.

Hélène Neveu Kringelbach – © – J.Pearce

Leoluca Orlando is the Mayor of Palermo and a member of the European Parliament. He is best known for the « Palermo Spring » against the Sicilian Mafia in the 1980s. A lawyer and Professor of Regional Public Law at the University of Palermo, he is the President of the Sicilian Renaissance Institute, which promotes the economy and culture of lawfulness and Human rights.

Timothée Parrique is a social scientist. He holds a PhD in economics from the Centre d’Études et de Recherches sur le Développement of the Université Clermont Auvergne and the Stockholm Resilience Centre of Stockholm University. His dissertation explores the economic implications of the ideas of degrowth. He is also the lead author of Decoupling Debunked – Evidence and Arguments against Green Growth (2019), a report published by the European Environmental Bureau (EEB).

Olivier Remaud is a philosopher and professor at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). Awarded with several international research and literature prizes, he recently published Thinking Like an Iceberg (Actes Sud, 2020 – english version to be published by Polity in June 2022). His work focuses on the social fables and life forms of the world.

Arthur Sajas is a composer, musician, and the conductor of the HAHA Sounds Collective. He plays the flute, bass, and guitar, and composes soundtracks. With the collective, he worked on a songbook of David Axelrod’s 1970 record Earth Rot fully re-transcribed for the time in 50 years at Church Of Sound in London.

Arthur Sajas – © – Gabelt

Zineb Sedira has been instrumental in expanding the discourse within contemporary art. Initially exploring her identity as a woman with a singular personal background rooted in France and Algeria, her interest in an autobiographical focus shifted to the universal ideas of mobility, memory, heritage, and transmission. Zineb Sedira will represent France at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022.

Zineb Sedira – © – Kamel Mennour

Elif Shafak is an award-winning author of 19 books translated into 55 languages, including 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and The Forty Rules of Love, part of BBC’s 100 Novels that Shaped Our World. Shafak holds a PhD in political science and Doctorate of Humane Letters from Bard College. She is Vice President of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded the medal of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Elif Shafak – © – Ferhat Elik

Jack Stilgoe is a Professor in Science and Technology at UCL. He researches governance of emerging technologies and with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), he developed a framework for responsible innovation. He is the principal investigator behind the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Driverless Futures project. He has been an adviser to the European Commission, Ada Lovelace Institute, and the UK government.

Alain Supiot is Professor Emeritus in Law at the Collège de France, where he held the chair of Social State and Globalization: Legal Analysis of Solidarities. He is a corresponding member of the British Academy and holds honorary doctorates from several universities (Louvain-la-Neuve, Aristotle of Thessaloniki, Liège, Buenos Aires). His work has been mainly in two complementary fields: labour law and legal theory.

Alain Supiot – © – Rougemont

Véronique Tadjo is a poet, novelist, artist, and academic from Côte d’Ivoire and former Head of French and Francophone Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. She studied at the Sorbonne, Paris IV, and Howard University in Washington, DC. Her novels The Blind Kingdom, Shadow of Imana: Travels in the Heart of Rwanda, Queen Pokou (Grand Prix d’Afrique Noire) have been translated in several languages.

Véronique Tajdo – © – Don Quichotte éditions 158

Emmanuel Tibloux is the Director of the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. He studied at the École Normale Supérieure before becoming a Literature lecturer at the University of Rennes 2. Previously, he was Director of the French Institute in Bilbao, the Art and Design Schools of Valence, Saint-Etienne, and Lyon, and presided the Association nationale des Ecoles supérieures d’Art (AndEA).

Emmanuel Tibloux © Beryl Libault

Tim Waterman is Associate Professor in Landscape Theory at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. He is the author of The Landscape of Utopia: Writings on Everyday Life, Taste, Democracy, and Design and editor of Landscape Citizenships with Ed Wall and Jane Wolff, Landscape and Agency: Critical Essays with Ed Wall, and the Routledge Handbook of Landscape and Food with Joshua Zeunert.