Theme: Ideas.Connected.

TEDxUoChester is an event for University for Chester students and faculty and will host a broad range of talks to encourage inspiration through inter-disciplinary collaboration.

The event is a staff-student collaboration.

Kingsway Campus, University of Chester
Kingsway
Chester, Cheshire West and Chester, CH23LB
United Kingdom

Anonymous Professor

The speaker is a university professor, researching provocative, pedagogical, performance artistry. The professor is interested in the potential of human capacity when we organise with curiosity and the unknown, rather than a constant drive to pin down and be precise about knowledge. It is for these reasons, the professor remains anonymous.

Christian Dunn

Dr Christian Dunn is a lecturer and research scientist in biological sciences at Bangor University. He is a former journalist and editor, and has a lifelong passion for natural history. Christian was inspired to start tackling plastic waste after surfing on Anglesey and seeing the rubbish washed-up onto the beach. So at the end of 2017 he launched the #StrawFreeChester campaign, which aims to make Chester the first city in the UK to stop using plastic, single-use drinking straws. Despite having no experience in running such campaigns the initiative has gained wide-spread support and Christian is now working with Surfers Against Sewage as a community leader for their Plastic Free Coastlines project.

Clare Devaney

Clare Devaney is founding Director of Citizen-i Ltd, a platform for citizen-led research and innovation, based in Manchester, UK. She is co-founder of Impact Hub Manchester, an ideas lab, incubator and collaborative workspace for Greater Manchester’s social impact community, and co-founder of M4, a civic innovation platform which works with people as innovators in driving ‘whole-self’ growth and social change. Clare’s recent research work has included leading the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) ‘Citizens and Inclusive Growth’ project (2017), working with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and its 2014-17 ‘Heritage, Identity and Place’ programme, co-produced in partnership with the Heritage Lottery Fund. She is a Research Associate with the MAPS-LED International Research Partnership, based at the University of Salford, which brings together colleagues from the UK, US, Italy and Finland in a collaborative exploration of innovation ecosystems, and Senior Research Fellow at the Agirre Centre for Social and Political Studies, a research partnership between the University of Basque Country and Columbia University, New York focused on culturally-driven and sustainable economic development models.

Fallen Angels Dance Theatre

Fallen Angels Dance Theatre (FADT) exist to support those in recovery from addiction to transform their lives and to share the recovery journey with the wider public, through dance, performance and creativity.

Hems de Winter

Rotterdam-born, Hems de Winter is a former journalist and editor who founded the award-winning de Winter PR in 1989. He is now a mentor, lecturer, business coach and speaker whose clients are spread across a range of significant SME businesses within the creative and other spheres of industry.

Jonathan Quinn

Jonathan Quinn discusses his life as an opportunistic inventor and general problem solver with a key focus on the environment and simple solutions for everyday problems. If we can all make small changes eventually we can make big differences.

Laura Fearnall

Co-Founder of The Source – PR, Marketing & Digital Communications Agency

Lou Walker

Lou Walker is a researcher, speaker and writer who focusses on workplace health and wellbeing. With 16 years as a management training and development consultant, Lou felt she could make more of a difference to people’s work performance and quality of life in general by tackling obesity and physical inactivity. This led to an MSc in Obesity & Weight Management at the University of Chester where she conducted research into UK office cake culture – the popular phenomenon of supplying sweet treats for work colleagues to share during the working day. Using her research results, Lou now works with organisations to start conversations among work colleagues to explore their own cake culture. The aim is to help people discuss and agree how to minimise cake consumption while retaining the social benefits of socialising with colleagues.

Sam Ryley

Sam Ryley is a photographer and filmmaker, co-founder of Tortoise magazine and Murmurations – the #makechester talks. He's a Chester local and is focused on making a positive contribution to the city he lives in.

Shelley Piasecka

Dr Shelley Piasecka is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chester in the Performing Arts Department and Senior Postgraduate Research Tutor for the School of Arts and Media. Her PhD with Manchester Metropolitan University examined the role of drama and creativity in the primary school curriculum. Shelley supports her teaching and research as a theatre director and writer and is co-founder of Piasecki & Piasecka Theatre Company, which she runs with her husband, and together they have shown their work to UK and international audiences. Her stage adaptation of Moby Dick was specially selected for a public event at the British Library discussing the life and work of Herman Melville. Shelley’s current academic research examines the role of drama and theatre in countering youth radicalisation in schools.

Simon Piasecki

Simon has enjoyed a connective career as an academic, artist, performer and a writer. His research considers notions of identity, belonging and landscape in socio-political and cultural contexts and his Phd studied ‘cartographies’ of Self and Other, considering belonging and place. He has published, exhibited, directed and performed in international contexts for 27 years, in Russia, Germany, France, Britain, Bilbao, as a painter and performance artist, making short films, photographs, installations and transporting audiences over mountains at night with performance and music. He has a theatre company with his wife, director Shelley Piasecka and their recent show, an adaptation of St-Exupery’s Flight to Arras, which considers the plight of refugees, returned from Armenia where it was an invited part of the Memorial Programme to the Armenian Genocide at Highfest. They have also collaborated with an ensemble of eight performers in an adaptation of Melville's Moby Dick, again with a particular interest in the cultural diversity of Ahab's crew, comprised of islanders from around the world. Recently Simon also played himself in Shane Meadow’s This is England 90’, having been his tutor way back in 1990 itself. He is Head of Drama, Dance and Performance Studies at Liverpool Hope University.