Working with a small studio team, larger freelance team and crew, Deco Publique is a micro organisation at heart, creating large scale cultural impact through collaboration.
Lauren Zawadzki
Co-Director
Lauren Zawadzki co-founded Deco Publique with Elena Jackson in 2014, after graduating as a mature student from Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts with a First Class Honours Degree.
Previously Lauren had a proven career in large-scale commercial construction, directing an organisation working on some of the UK’s largest construction projects, and allowing her to bring unique transferable skills to the cultural industries.
Lauren works with the team comprehensively across the business, securing funding, developing new programmes of artistic work and engaging stakeholder groups as well as on the ground delivery, whether its supporting artists to work in residence in a factory setting, delivering co-design with young people in rural locations or bringing world-class musicians and DJ’s to the shores of Morecambe Bay - and everything in between.
Lauren is also the Festival Director of the National Festival of Making, a Community Interest Company delivering work of national significance in Blackburn, Lancashire, and winners of the UK Festival Awards Best Non-Music Festival.
No matter what the project, the absolute best outcome for Lauren is the human-centred result - seeing people come together, take part, interact with one another, the sense of togetherness.
Lauren is married with 3 children and lives in the coastal village of Heysham. Lauren regularly returns to LIPA to give guest lectures and is a Trustee of music education charity More Music.
Elena Jackson
Co-Director
Elena is a Curator and Producer. Together with Lauren she co-founded art and culture company Deco Publique in 2013; Morecambe’s Vintage by the Sea Festival and the National Festival of Making Community Interest Company. Elena initiates place specific projects - working with artists, industry and communities to create mass and intimate art and cultural experiences that feel rooted in place. Through the work of Deco Publique, Elena is passionate about creating new platforms for artists and creative practitioners to make original work, and for communities and individuals to access and engage in high quality artistic experiences presented within unique landscapes and urban spaces.
Elena is Artistic Director of the National Festival of Making and Curator of the Festival’s commissioning programme, Art in Manufacturing, placing 26 artists in residence with industry in Lancashire to date. Recently she led Deco Publique’s co-curation of five heritage landscape artworks around the Morecambe Bay coastline including two permanent sculptures, SHIP and Horizon Line Chamber.
Working across all aspects of the Deco Publique practice, Elena develops the festival and artistic vision and works to ensure the curated programme upholds the aims of the CIC; strategically develops creative projects within the context of the regional and national arts ecology and secures project investment.
Elena is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Board Director of embedded art practice In-Situ.
Daisy Williamson
Project Assistant
Daisy is an artist from the rural North West and a graduate of Lancaster University. She started working with Deco Publique on a placement through the FASS Internship programme and after 2 months intensive placement officially joined the team as a Project Assistant.
Daisy’s day-to-day involves working on The FOLD, a project commissioned by Great Place Lakes and Dales and co-designed with young people from the area. The project, focused primarily in Bentham, Settle and Kendal, seeks to involve young people in the process of idea generation and programming, and builds on the creative offer already present in these places.
Daisy generates content for our social media platforms as well as assisting across our project portfolio. She recently worked on production for the 300 activity boxes developed and delivered to children in Blackburn as part of the National Festival of Making.
In Daisy’s own practice she concentrates on opening up the dialogue around everyday sexism and has had her work exhibited in Manchester, Liverpool and Lancaster and can often be found buried in her sketchbook.
Collective & Crew
Across festivals and commissions for years, we’ve worked with artists and creative practitioners, producers, curators, production teams, designers, PRs, film makers and photographers - a collective of creatives who bring each vision to life. And for each activity we work with a brilliant crew who help us make amazing things possible - building, shifting, making, getting in, getting out, and celebrating at the end.
Photographs - Vintage by the Sea 2019
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