Rose Fenton and Lucy Neal

Rose Fenton OBE and Lucy Neal OBE were the co-founding directors, from 1980– 2005, of LIFT – the London International Festival of Theatre. The Turning World: Stories from the London International Festival of Theatre, written by Fenton and Neal, was published by the Gulbenkian Foundation in 2005. After LIFT, Fenton became Director of the International Literature House Free Word. She is an arts advisor and mentor for the Clore Leadership Programme and sits on the board of a number of arts organizations, including Aerowaves and the European House of Culture in Brussels, and is active in the Culture Declares Emergency movement. Active in the grassroots Transition movement since 2008, Neal is a founder declarer of Culture Declares Emergency. Her handbook Playing for Time – Making Art As If The World Mattered (Bloomsbury) maps collaborative arts practices emerging in response to the climate and ecological emergency. Neal is a collaborator on Walking Forest, a 10-year artwork culminating in 2028, inspired by forest eco-systems, women and activism. Fenton and Neal have both been awarded Honorary Doctorates from Warwick and de Montfort Universities, and in 2005 they received OBEs for services to Drama.