Profile

​Tessa Hart is a Culture & Change Maker in performing arts, film & socio-cultural fields, who has lived in Berlin, Brussels and London. Currently Tessa is the Project & Artistic Director of AfroPolitan Berlin, Artistic Director of the production company Goblin Baby Co., and regularly forms part of selections committees and juries, such as the Filmfestival Max Ophüls Preis or the IKARUS Nomination Jury (Children & Youth Theatre Award). Tessa has also been working everything artistically to organisationally for numerous performance, film and cultural projects as well as co-founded The Bread & Roses Theatre in London, and serving as its Co-Director for seven years. Tessa writes, curates, stages, performs, mediates, organises, researches, invents, moderates, teaches, accompanies, moves and does whatever else comes up.

As an author, Tessa has contributed to Realitäten. 30 queere Stimmen (etece buch), Schwarz wird großgeschrieben (&Töchter), Sisters & Souls 2 (orlanda), Was uns empowert (unrast), Racialised Faces in white Creative Spaces (edition assemblage); as a poet and playwright to Parabolis Virtualis 3 (Querverlag), Hear Me Now - Audition Monologues for Actors of Colour (Bloomsbury) as well as having written theatre plays. 
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Topics that Tessa particularly engages with right now are sustainable cultural change, equal opportunities, participation, empowerment, intersectionality, power- and discrimination-criticism, queerness / LGBTQIA* Living Realities, Black identities & communities & (performing) arts, neurodiversity & autism, anti-sanism/-neurodiscrimination, trauma-transformation, personal power & potential as well as authenticity - all from both expertise as well as own lived experience. 
{all pronouns or none}

Enquiries

Activities

• Spoken Word / Readings / Performances
• ​Curation & programming of performance, film & cultural projects
• Panels / Discussion Forums
• Moderation / Presentation
• Empowerment Workshops
• Participation Trainings
• Keynotes / Lectures
• Specialist Seminars
• Text contributions
• ​Coachings
  

Focus

• Conception, development and curation/programming of (new) cultural projects as well as conceiving revised, power- & discrimination-critical structures.
• Participation, empowerment & resilience of people who have to experience structural discrimination, and who are socially and culturally excluded from equal opportunities
• Artistic and scientific practices that explores and develops processes, approaches and results that think beyond the status quo and stir up the confines of conventional art and knowledge practices.

Studies / Formal Education

• ​Bachelor of Arts (BA) - Theatre Studies - Free University of Berlin, 2006-2009
• Master of Fine Arts (MFA) - Acting International - East 15 Acting School (London) / University of Essex, 2009-2011
• Tamasha Playwrights - one-year training programme for selected playwrights with Tamasha Theatre Company (London), 2015-2016
• Criterion New Writing - one-year training programme for selected playwrights with Criterion Theatre (London), 2016-2017
• Currently pursuing a PhD at FU Berlin with the working title "Diasporadical Spaces - Contemporary Afropean Performing Arts across (Post-) German contexts"
• Currently pursuing SG-certified qualification in "Systemic Coaching and Organisational Development" at SIA Berlin (2022-2024)

Selection of further references

• ADAN e.V.- Afrodeutsches Akademiker Netzwerk
• Afrika Akademie - Schwarze Volkshochschule
• Afrika Medien Zentrum
• afro-Festival Heidelberg
• Afrolution Festival
• Alte Feuerwache e.V.
• Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität
• Artistic Directors of the Future
• Berlin Biennale
• Berliner Schaufenster - Theater und Tanz für die Jüngsten
• Berliner Theatertreffen
• Beyond the Canon
• BIWOC* Rising: (H)Our Realities Podcast
• Black Reels Film Festival, Black Art Action Berlin
• Branchentreff der freien darstellenden Künste
• Bundestagsfraktion Bündnis 90/Die Grünen
• Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste
• Dachverband Tanz Deutschland
• D/Arts Wien - Projektbüro für Diversität & urbanen Dialog​​
• Deutsches Theater
• DIS-TANZEN
• Dock11
• Each One Teach One (EOTO) e.V.
• Fachstelle Queere Jugend NRW
• Filmfest Dresden
• Filmfestival Max Ophüls Preis
• Filmfest München
• Freie Universität Berlin
• Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
• Greenwich University​​
• Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung
• Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
• Instituto Cervantes Berlin
• Integrationsbeirat Friedrichshains-Kreuzberg

• Interkontinental e.V.
• International Film Festival Braunschweig
• International Theatre Institute (ITI)
• Jugendbildungsstätte Kaubstraße​​ 
• JugendKulturService gGmbH
• Jung von Matt
• Kompetenzzentrum Kultur- & Kreativwirtschaft des Bundes
• Kotti e.V.
• Kreativ-Transfer
• u-institut für unternehmerisches Denken und Handeln e.V.
• LAFT Berlin, Landesverband freie darstellende Künste Berlin e.V.
• Literaturhaus Frankfurt
• LSVD - Lesben- und Schwulenverband in Deutschland
• Lukulule – Musik und Tanz für Jugend e.V.: ​SuperPower Autismus Spektrum
• Middlesex University
• Migration Sphere Heidelberg e.V.
  
• Münchener Kammerspiele
• Nationaltheater Mannheim
• North London Literary Festival: Writing Beyond Genres & Borders
• Offensive Tanz für junges Publikum
• ProQuote Film
• Prout at Work
• Queer Gold
• Queer Media Society
• Q_munity
• RADA - Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
• re:publica
• tanzhaus nrw
• TENT
• Theater der Welt Festival
• Theater und Orchester Heidelberg
• Theater o.N.
• Theatre Royal Stratford East
• UK National Theatre
• Universität Mannheim
• WOW - Women of the World Festival, Southbank Centre

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re:publica 2022: Afrofuturism (Moderation / Speaker)

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Filmfestival Max Ophüls Preis (Curation & Speaker)

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QueerMediaSociety, Filmfest München (Moderation, English)

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​Branchentreff der freien darstellenden Künste -
"Normalität" - (Moderation, German, Radio)

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Integrationsbeirat Friedrichshains-Kreuzberg @ Kotti e.V. (Moderation, German)

Auf YouTube ansehen

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Performing Arts Festival Berlin & Berliner Theatertreffen (Moderation, German)

in Mediathek ansehen

Kultur- & Kreativwirtschaft Kongress (Day Moderation)

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D/Arts (Presentation & Panellist)

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Book-Launch Sisters & Souls 2. (Spoken Word Performance)

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​Filmfest Dresden (Moderation, English)

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​(H)Our Realities: True Colours of Neurodiversity - (Moderation, German, Podcast)