Dr. Julie Freeman is a pioneering force at the intersection of art, design, technology, and entrepreneurship. As a serial entrepreneur, artist, and computer scientist, she creates groundbreaking work that fuses biology, data, and immersive sonic experiences. Widely recognized through exhibitions at UK institutions like the Science Museum, V&A and Barbican, Julie’s innovation spans public art commissions to advanced research in material-borne sound. A TED Senior Fellow, she established ShapedSound, offering sculptural sonic furniture that redefines how we engage with our environments. By blending rigorous technical expertise with artistic vision, Julie in the designer of Sonaforms™, delivering transformative solutions that push creative boundaries.

Photo credit: Tessa Hallmann for Estuary Festival

Grace is a creative producer, artist, facilitator and mentor with 15 years of experience connecting the dots between nature, technology, illustration, education, activism and literature. She began her career as Community Manager at a start-up producing electrically conductive paint and open-source hardware, where she discovered the joys of tactile and accessible technology, interactive installation and DIY maker culture. Grace went on to lead ambitious creative  programmes and has worked with hundreds of educators and young people in schools, public services, museums, charities and leading galleries. Trained with coaching techniques and mentoring skills, Grace is fundamentally people-focussed and works frequently with domestic violence survivors, young people and early-stage creatives. 

Cat specialises in managing creatives, brands, and projects. Her wide-ranging creative interests and skills contribute to a unique perspective, as she strives to foster growth, nurture talent, build brands, create partnerships, and craft meaningful experiences. Her global journey reflects passion and profession, blending creativity with strategic finesse. She brings 16+ years of experience in style and design PR, film, communication consulting, and music management.

An Ivor Novello Award winning composer and sound designer, creating new music and soundworlds for film, theatre, opera, dance, installations and her own live performance. Sarah’s work seamlessly combines voices and instruments with her own robotic art and finely wrought, bespoke electronic effects.

Dan is an artist working with sound, music, and performance. Their work often creates sonic communities, using sound-making, aurality research and listening as methodologies for connecting people. As a musician and composer they approach music as a connective practice, with performance being a space for togetherness and sharing. Dan is currently a post-doc researcher at Centre for Performance Technology & Equity at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

Every Sonaform™ is made to order in the workshop just outside Oxford, UK. Each one is cut, assembled and finished by a small team of experienced woodworkers and cabinet makers, resulting in an extremely durable and hardwearing quality finish that will last for decades.

Julian Treasure is an international speaker and trainer on the critical communication skills of listening and speaking, and the effective use of sound in business. Collectively, Julian’s five TED Talks have been viewed over 150 million times. How to speak so that people want to listen is the sixth most-viewed TED talk of all time.

Hannah is a contemporary art curator specialising in emerging and trans-disciplinary practices within the fields of art, data, science and technology. With a special interest in collaboration, participation and new technologies, Hannah works with us to develop audience-focused projects for museums, galleries, academic organisations, corporate contexts, digital space and the public realm. Hannah worked at the Science Museum Group for 17 years, primarily as Head of Science Museum Arts Programme. Prior to that she co-founded and co-directed an early London digital media start-up company. She regularly speaks and writes on multidisciplinary art and curating practices. Hannah is an alumni of the Royal College of Art.

Mark is Professor of Signal Processing and Director of the Centre for Digital Music at Queen Mary University of London. His expertise includes: Digital Signal Processing, Machine Learning and Deep Learning especially for Audio and Music. Mark has researched in many areas including: fractal and chaotic audio modelling, digital audio power amplification, sigma-delta modulation (SDM) for Digital to Analogue Conversion (DACs), immersive and surround sound (including ambisonic to binaural conversion, perceptual evaluation), high order all-pole modelling of musical instruments, drum synthesis, efficient architectures for EQ, and more.