Who we are
Bobby Baker, Artistic Director
Bobby Baker's acclaimed intersectional feminist practice includes performance, drawing, and installation, and persistently exposes the undervalued and stigmatised aspects of women’s daily lives, exemplified by pioneering works such as Drawing on a Mother’s Experience (1988) and Kitchen Show (1991), which was acquired by the Arts Council Collection in 2024.
In 2019 a retrospective of Baker’s work featuring paintings, sketchbooks, storyboards and prints made between 1970 and 2019 was presented at La Casa Encendida, Madrid, curated by Clara Zarza. The exhibition, titled Tarros de Chutney, included the artist’s acclaimed Diary Drawings (1997–2008), and a selection of Timed Drawings made by Baker in 1984, when her children were small, shown for the first time.
Born in 1950 in Kent, UK, she graduated from Painting at St. Martins School of Art (1972, now Central St Martins) and holds an Honorary Doctorate from Queen Mary University London.
Performances, installations and exhibitions include An Edible Family in a Mobile Home (1976/2023) as part of Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970–1990 at Tate Britain, London (2023) and the Whitworth, Manchester (2025); Burning Down the House: Rethinking Family, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland (2024); Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood, curated by Hettie Judah for Arnolfini, Bristol, MAC, Birmingham (2024), Millennium Gallery, Sheffield (2024/2025), Dundee Contemporary Arts (2025), and VISUAL Carlow, Ireland (2025/2026); EPIC DOMESTIC at The Tetley, Leeds as part of Leeds 2023 Year of Culture (2023); Great & Tiny War, Newcastle (2018); An Edible Family in a Mobile Home (1976), London; Drawing on a (Grand) Mother’s Experience, WOW-Women of the World Festival, London (2015); Kitchen Show (1991), London, Adelaide Festival and touring; How to Live, Barbican Centre, London (2004); Table Occasions 9–15, Münchner Künstlerhaus, Munich (1998); How to Shop, Chicago International Festival of Arts (1996); Cook Dems, Harbour Front Centre, Toronto (1992); and Box Story, Arnolfini, Bristol (2001).
Selected solo exhibitions include Tarros de Chutney, La Casa Encendida, Madrid (2019); Art Supermarket and Perpetuity in Icing, ICA, London (1978); and Diary Drawings: ‘Mental Illness’ and Me 1997–2008, Wellcome Collection, London (touring exhibition) (2009).
Click here for full CV.
Bobby Baker lives and works in London.
Melissa Bradshaw, General Manager
Melissa joined Daily Life Ltd as General Manager in March 2022. She previously worked at Heart n Soul, a creative arts charity, as Project Coordinator on their two-year experimental research project at Wellcome Collection called Heart n Soul at The Hub. She has a BA in Psychology from San Francisco State University and an MA in Visual Sociology from Goldsmiths, University of London.
Kemi Williams, Programme Coordinator
Kemi joined Daily Life Ltd as a programme coordinator in September 2023 and previously worked with Daily Life Ltd. as a programme assistant in 2022, on the Diary Drawings project. She formerly worked at Collage Arts as a programme assistant, facilitating creative online events, workshops and exhibitions.
Kemi has a BA in Media and Cultural Studies and is interested in making art and cultural experiences accessible and engaging to wider audiences. She has also worked in television and film.
Associates
Gemma Lloyd, Associate Curator
Gemma Lloyd is an independent curator and editor working across contemporary art, public space and publishing. Her practice is particularly concerned with the relationships between people, place and memory, and with social and ecological histories, everyday experience and embodied knowledge.
She has curated exhibitions and projects for organisations including RAMM, Exeter; the Nunnery Gallery, London; Czarna Galeria, Warsaw; Kunstraum, London; the Living Art Museum, Reykjavík; Ferens Art Gallery and Hull Maritime Museum, and has worked closely with artists including Emma Hart, Jonathan Baldock, John Walter and Maria Amidu.
As an associate of Bridget Sawyers Ltd., Gemma works on public art commissions across the UK, including Tideway’s programme of more than 50 commissions along the River Thames.
She has longstanding relationships with cultural organisations in Lithuania and works as an English-language editor with the Contemporary Art Centre and Sapieha Palace, Nida Art Colony of the Vilnius Academy of Arts, Vilnius Museum, MO Museum, the Vilnius Biennial of Performance, the publications as a Journal and Lietuvos muzikologija (Lithuanian Musicology), and the April Writing Residency in Trakai.
Gemma studied Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University and holds an MA in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art.
Rose Sharp, Associate Producer
We were deeply saddened by the death of our long-standing friend and collaborator Rose Sharp in May 2026.
Rose played an integral role in supporting Bobby’s practice over many years and was central to the development and delivery of the remake of An Edible Family in a Mobile Home at Tate Britain (2023) and the Whitworth (2025). She brought exceptional practical wisdom, generosity and calm to everything she worked on and was affectionately described by Bobby as a ‘producer of common sense’.
Rose’s support extended far beyond individual productions. She was a trusted colleague and friend whose experience, encouragement and good judgement were invaluable to Bobby and the wider Daily Life Ltd. team.
Rose had a particular ability to take a step back, see the bigger picture and offer a perspective that brought clarity and wisdom to even the most complicated situations. As a lasting legacy of this, every Daily Life Ltd. team meeting now includes a standing item: ‘What would Rose say?’ It is our way of keeping her voice and perspective present in the way we work together.
Rose’s contribution to Bobby’s work and to Daily Life Ltd. was immeasurable, and she is greatly missed by all of us who had the privilege and pleasure of working with her.
An obituary by Janice Perry was published in The Guardian and can be read here.
Bren O'Callaghan, Associate Senior Producer
Bren is a curator, producer and creative strategist with over 20 years’ experience delivering cultural projects that inspire and delight. He has shaped more than 80 exhibitions, performances and large-scale public events, with a reputation for making ambitious ideas accessible to broad audiences - from public realm takeovers and multi-disciplinary commissions to experiential cinema and live performance.
As Curator and Senior Producer for the trailblazing BBC Public Space Broadcasting initiative, he developed a UK-wide programme of outdoor video art, interactive commissions and grassroots activation. With a portfolio of multiple artist films including two features, other highlights include co-producing a £1.5M visual arts programme for Eurovision 2023, founding the Manchester Open (the UK’s largest open-entry visual arts exhibition outside London), and launching The Gallery, a national public art programme.
Bren has curated and produced major exhibitions and commissions for HOME, Cornerhouse, Manchester International Festival, Artichoke, Culture Liverpool and Creative UK, with groundbreaking artists including David Lynch, Cassils, Rachel Maclean, John Walter, Peaches Christ and many more.
Caroline Smith, Associate Creative Producer
Caroline is an independent arts consultant and creative producer, based in London. Her work encompasses the creative production of ambitious works by individual artists as well as strategic development for cultural organisations, fundraising, and project management of events and exhibitions.
She works as a regular producer and studio director with artists Simon Faithfull and Cornelia Parker. Recent work includes working as Exhibition Producer at Tate Britain, and as an Artistic Advisor for Durham 2025. Caroline has been working with Daily Life Ltd on Strategic planning and fundraising, including our successful NPO application.
Ilana Mitchell, Associate Director and Curator
Ilana is an artist, curator and facilitator who lives in Newcastle upon Tyne. She is working with Daily Life as an interim Executive Director and curator.
While fostering an alternative-to-mainstream approach, her works spans scale and type, from individual projects and collaborations to setting up and supporting arts organisations and structures.
Ilana led the ‘playfully disruptive, seriously curious’ arts production company Wunderbar as Artistic Director from its inception in 2008. She was a founding member of the Star & Shadow Cinema – a volunteer-run open co-operative housed in a building it owns, dedicated to culture coming from and/or programmed by the grass roots. She is Chair of Trustees of The NewBridge Project, an artist-led hub of pioneering contemporary art practice providing an ambitious programme of exhibitions, commissions, events, artist development and studio provision.
A 2002 graduate of Newcastle University’s Fine Art degree course, Ilana has been supported to make work in the UK by organisations including the National Football Museum, Camden Arts Centre, East St Arts, and Artsadmin, and internationally such as Spielart (DE), Junction Festival (AUS), Homo Novus (LAT). She also makes things on her own or in collaboration - such as her 2017 project The Year of Years and 2019’s Edicure. She received a British Academy “Rising Star” Award for her collaboration Good Feels, Cool Friends with philosopher Dr Rachael Wiseman.
Dr. Dora Whittuck, Associate Evaluation Consultant
Dora is a service design and evaluation consultant with special interests in the
person-centred practices and organisational development. She has over 20 years of experience working as a consultant clinical psychologist, researcher and senior lecturer, and has worked in a range of health, academic, arts and charitable settings. Dora loves to build strong collaborative relationships and to develop creative and dynamic solutions to problems. Over the last 4 years she has worked with Heart n Soul, the Wellcome Trust and the Health Foundation on projects seeking to radically reimagine collaborative arts, evaluation, research and care services alongside learning disabled and autistic people.
Sarah Pickthall, Associate Equity Diversity Inclusion Engineer
Sarah has always been interested in the spaces that unite and divide us all.
Her extensive facilitation, training, production and coaching portfolio is
dedicated to ensuring a broad range of voices and opinions are represented
and included in the creative, cultural, media and health sectors in the UK and
beyond.
A dancer and children’s television writer and puppeteer for 10 years with the
Media Merchants for CITV, Sarah joined Arts Council England in 2004 and
became the first Chair of its Disabled Workers Group.
On leaving Arts Council she had an extensive career as a digital dance
producer working locally and internationally which gave way to more bespoke
coaching and leadership projects in arts, culture, heritage, health and disability
in line with her own changing energy and impairment.
She additionally co-founded Sync Leadership alongside Jo Verrent of
Unlimited, working with Deaf, and disabled leaders with its mix of leadership
theory and coaching practices. Sync has run its programmes in the UK,
Australia, Canada, South Korea, Singapore and in 2023, in Jordan and
Palestine. In 2023 she designed and delivered Amplify, a leadership and
coaching programme for ITV which was wild.
Sarah is a Trustee for StopGap Dance Company, Co-Chair of Access All
Areas Theatre Company alongside her colleague Charlene Salter and
Diversity Associate for Clore Leadership heading up their disabled-led
Inclusive Cultures programme, now in its fourth year.
www.sarahpickthall.com
www.syncleadership.com
Trustees
Suzanne Alleyne
Suzanne Alleyne is a Cultural Thinker. Collaborative working is at the heart of everything she does. She is driven by the belief that considering people, profit and purpose at all levels of business, benefits both organisations and wider society.
Her business navigates the intersection of culture and commerce underpinned by 25 years’ experience supporting and consulting for high profile international organisations and individuals. Her portfolio of clients includes Barclaycard, Channel 4, V&A, Wellcome Trust and Roundhouse. Within the arts she has an impressive track record working with UK writers and poets on their professional development and associated shows.
She is an inaugural Arts Council England Changemaker, through which she was Commercial, Brand and Strategy Director at Apples and Snakes. She is a Fellow of the RSA, a Cultural Animateur for Signifier, and a Visiting Research Associate and guest lecturer at King’s College London.
Malika Booker
Malika Booker is a British poet of Guyanese and Grenadian Parentage. And the founder of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen. Her pamphlet Breadfruit, (flippedeye, 2007) received a Poetry Society recommendation and her poetry collection Pepper Seed (Peepal Tree Press, 2013) was shortlisted for the OCM Bocas prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre 2014 prize for first full collection. She is published with the poets Sharon Olds and Warsan Shire in The Penguin Modern Poet Series 3:Your Family: Your Body (2017).
Malika received her MA from Goldsmiths University and has recently begun a PhD at the University of Newcastle. She was the Douglas Caster Cultural Fellow in Creative Writing at Leeds University, the first British poet to be a fellow at Cave Canem and the inaugural Poet in Residence at The Royal Shakespeare Company.
Malika hosts and curates New Caribbean Voices, Peepal Tree Press’s literary podcast, and is currently a poetry Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Ellie Porter
Ellie Porter is an independent archive and legacy specialist working with artists and estates. She was previously Head of Programme at the independent charity, Art360 Foundation, which helped over 50 artists and their relatives preserve work for the future. Her collaborative endeavours have included exhibitions, films, events and archive-focussed research initiatives with partners such as the International Curators Forum, Hauser & Wirth Institute, the Showroom and The National Archives.
In 2024 Ellie is delivering events focussed on art and place with Flat Time House, the Women's Art Library, Household Belfast, the Yasmin David Estate and others through the British Art Network, supported by Tate and the Paul Mellon Centre. Much of her archival practice takes place within the context of artists' personal and domestic spaces. Alongside independent work, Ellie is managing Gifts and Bequests at Art Fund and delivering projects for the Whitechapel Gallery.
Photo: Nick Freeman @nick_harvey_freeman
Anthony Roberts
Anthony Roberts is currently director of Colchester Arts Centre. The organisation declares an artistic bias towards new work innovation and experimentation. The performance programme includes an eclectic mix of performance arts including jazz music, folk, rock and pop, world music, comedy, children’s theatre, performance poetry, film.
Anthony is also currently the chair of Frozen Light theatre company who specialise in making work for people with profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD). Frozen Light take their work throughout the UK with a vigourous touring schedule and recently developed international mentoring and development work.
He is the UK producer for the New York-based activists and performance troupe Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping
For 14 years he was the producer for Escalator East to Edinburgh taking over 20 companies, performers, poets, choreographers to the Edinburgh festival every year. During this time, he was an active campaigner for better access to the fringe for performers and audiences with disabilities.
Clara Zarza
Clara Zarza is an art and design historian and curator specialized in Contemporary Installation Art, Visual Theory and Material Culture. Her interdisciplinary research has also relied on literary, anthropological and philosophical studies on identity, experience, intimacy and the autobiographical subject, as well as design and material culture narratives.
PhD in Art History from Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and JAEPre predoctoral fellow (2009-2013) of the Institute of Language, Literature and Anthropology at the Center for Human and Social Sciences (CCHS-CSIC, Madrid). Her thesis ‘Intimate Spaces. Autobiographical Modes and Materials present in the 1990s Euroamerican Art Practices’ was awarded European Doctor Mention and Outstanding PhD Award in Art History for best thesis of the year 2013-2014 (UCM).
She currently holds a tenure track position at IE University School of Architecture and Design. In addition to her research and teaching activity at IE University, she has taught courses, workshops, and seminars on contemporary art and material culture at various institutions such as the Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo or La Casa Encendida, creating educational experiences with an emphasis on audience engagement and participation.
She curated and coordinated the exhibition and performance show ‘Bobby Baker: Jars of Chutney’ (22 February – 21 April 2019, La Casa Encendida, Madrid) along with the documentary piece that accompanied the show.
Creative Collaborators
Joe Hales, designer
Claire Greenhalgh, fundraiser
Miranda Melville, production designer
Claire Nolan, filmmaker
Jo Palmer, production manager
Steve Wald, technical director
Charlie Whittuck, artist
Sian Stevenson, choreographic associate