Executive Member

Laura McDermott

Creative Director, Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts

Laura is Creative Director at Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (formerly Gardner Arts Centre), a beautiful 1960s building on the University of Sussex campus, which was recently refurbished and reopened in 2016.

She is a trustee of Blast Theory, sits on the board of directors for Capsule (who produce Supersonic Festival and the Home of Metal project in Birmingham) and is a member of the advisory board for performance duo Action Hero.

Previously, Laura has worked with Situations as a Creative Associate on The Tale (September 2017), a journey of discovery through a series of site-specific artworks across the coast of Torbay. From 2009 – 2015 she was Joint Artistic Director (with Harun Morrison) of Fierce Festival – a city-wide festival of international performance in Birmingham.

In 2012-13, Laura was awarded a CLORE Fellowship in Arts Participation and Engagement (supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation), during which she completed a secondment at Arts at CERN, which is based at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva.

From 2005 – 2009 Laura was a creative producer at BAC (Battersea Arts Centre) in London, where she programmed seasons, festivals and was lead producer for the Punchdrunk and BAC co-production The Masque of the Red Death.

Pronouns: She/her

“Brighton & Hove's independent spirit is the best part of its cultural scene. People are not afraid to do things differently and break new territory. Organisations are underpinned by a thriving community of local freelancers. Much of the work produced here has significant international profile, but our intimate city allows exciting collaborations across disciplines, between artists, organisations and communities. ”