SPEAKERS
Uche Bagot-Sealey
Uchechukwu Bagot-Sealey holds a PhD in Intellectual Property (IP) Law from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), where she researched approaches to copyright authorship as a means of closing the gender pay gap for costume designers in the film industry. Her research interests include the intersection of copyright law and social justice, particularly in relation to racial, gender, and economic inequality. Uchechukwu is broadly interested in IP and the creative industries, especially film, fashion, and music, as catalysts for cultural engagement and historical preservation.
Uchechukwu is a lecturer at University of Westminster, where she convenes modules and contributes to teaching across the LLB and LLM programmes.
Lucy Bolton
Lucy Bolton is Professor of Film Philosophy at QMUL. She is the author of Contemporary Cinema and the Philosophy of Iris Murdoch (EUP 2019) and Film and Female Consciousness: Irigaray, Cinema and Thinking Women (Palgrave 2011). She is also the co-editor of Contemporary Screen Ethics (EUP 2023) and Lasting Screen Stars (Palgrave 2017). Her most recent book is The Feminist Film Philosophy Reader (Bloomsbury 2025) and she is currently writing the monograph Philosophies of Film Stardom: Ethics, Aesthetics, Phenomenologies (EUP 2026). Lucy co-edits, with Richard Rushton, the book series Visionaries: the Work of Women Filmmakers.
Laura Edgar
Laura Edgar is Reader in Law in CCLS, QMUL. Her research interests are electronic commerce, particularly digital payments systems, artificial intelligence and robotics, intellectual property and legal issues affecting virtual enterprises.
Ogulcan Ekiz
Dr Ogulcan Ekiz is a senior lecturer in law at the School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University. Ogulcan’s research broadly addresses intellectual property law, legal theory, and visual arts. With an interest in the reciprocity of theory and practice of the law, Ogulcan adopts empirical and practice-based methodologies. His monograph titled Photographs and Copyright Law: Reproduction, Permissions, and Scholarship (Routledge, 2025) presents the empirical research he conducted in relation to photography licensing in the academic publishing industry in the UK. His artwork i miss the opinion of human s (2026) alters the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act by erasing certain parts of the text of the Act to leave out a new narrative. It was exhibited in the Dissonant Laws exhibition in London, UK and the Incomputable exhibition at the NINA Festival in Rome, Italy. A collage work he made with a found photograph, titled A Photograph for the Next Century (2022) was published at the Queen Mary Law Journal. Ekiz has published in Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property, Intellectual Property Quarterly, and Amicus Curiae. He has contributed to edited volumes on topics such as Rawlsian copyright theory, deepfakes, and artificial intelligence and copyright enforcement. Ekiz is a member and contributor of the Art/Law Network, Copyright and Pastiche Network, Five Leaf Institute of Law and Aesthetics, People’s Justice Network, and The Law and the Humanities Hub.
Johanna Gibson
Johanna Gibson is Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property Law in the Centre for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS), QMUL and the founding Director of FIVE LEAF Institute for Law and Aesthetics. Johanna’s research interests are in intellectual property and the creative industries, particularly fashion and film, law and aesthetics, and ethology and critical animal studies, particularly in relation to nonhuman animal creativity, aesthetics, and agency. Johanna has published extensively in the fields of intellectual property, critical theory, and animal studies, is series editor with Frantzeska Papadopoulou of The Fashion Law Library (Hart Publishing), Intellectual Property, Theory, Culture (Routledge), and series editor with Trevor Cook for Intellectual Property: Law in Practice series (Edward Elgar Publishing). Her most recent book, Wanted, More Than Human Intellectual Property was published by Routledge in 2025.
Erik Gustafsson
Erik Gustafsson is Senior Lecturer in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. His research focuses on entrepreneurship in the creative industries, especially fashion. This work includes the importance of varieties of knowledge, and the role of artistic and creative knowledge for entrepreneurship in said industries. In relation to this, Erik also focuses on the understanding of value creation beyond the monetary perspective in creative industries.
Marie Hadley
Marie Hadley is Senior Lecturer in the School of Law and Social Justice, at the University of Newcastle, Australia, where she specialises in intellectual property law, with a focus on copyright law and intellectual property norms. Her work aims to deepen the understanding of the relationship between law and society, especially in the context of disputes over visual imagery. Marie uses innovative socio-legal methods, interdisciplinary approaches, and transdisciplinary collaborations to explore the legal, ethical, and cultural dimensions of copyright law controversies. She enjoys collaborating with visual artists and humanities scholars, aiming to illustrate the connections between law and the norms, ethics, and business considerations that influence creativity and copying. Marie's art law collaborations have produced traditional and non-traditional research outputs including journal articles, digital artwork, songs, curated walks, and exhibitions. "Grey Lines', her installation with tattooist Dr Adam McDade on collaborative authorship, was exhibited as part of the New Annual Arts Festival in 2025 and is featuring here at the FIVE LEAF exhibition accompanying the conference, SENSE STRANDS.
Astrid Maria Heimer
Astrid Heimer is an associate professor at the department for Produkt Design, TKD, OsloMet. She has a PhD in Cultural studies, from USN's faculty of Humanities, Sports and Educational Sciences, and a diploma in ceramics from the Oslo Academy of the Arts (previously Statens Håndverks og Kunstindustriskole). The thesis, Grip to get a grip of form: Concrete and abstract comprehension of form, is about form, how haptic perception, and embodied comprehension of form can supplement knowledge based on abstract form theories and visual perception. The dissertation contributes to create connections between different knowledge from practice and theory.
Astrid's expertise applies to various aesthetic practice-based disciplines such as design, arts, and crafts. Her special fields at Product Design are aesthetic practice-based methods, emphasizing creativity, form, perception, and materiality in design. Another key topic in her research and teaching is Design and Culture. She participates in the research group Design, Culture and Sustainability, and in the projects, CraftHub, UTFORSK and The Measure - Participatory Design. CraftHub is a European project, part of the Creative Europe Program and focuses on crafts and cultural heritage in contemporary practice. UTFORSK and The Measure - Participatory Design are two collaborative projects between OsloMet and UNESP, Bauru in Brazil. The two projects involve research and teaching related to design, health and well-being.
Parallel with the position at Product Design, Astrid works as a ceramist artist. See her work on the website: https://www.astridheimer.no
Alasdair King
Alasdair King is Reader in Film in the School of the Arts, QMUL. His research is interdisciplinary, drawing on philosophy and film and media (often but not exclusively in a German context) to think about the relationship between aesthetics and critical political economy. His current research looks at the contemporary condition of the moving image, most centrally in the use made by filmmakers of posthuman image generation to address processes and technologies of valuation and extraction. He has been working for some time on the relationship between the contemporary moving image (fiction and non-fiction films, mainstream and experimental) and economics, particularly on images that engage with the contemporary financial regime. In 2020 he set up and co-convened CAPITAL FORMS, a postgraduate training programme in the Economic Humanities, funded by the London Arts and Humanities Partnership.
Rikke Luther
Rikke Luther is an artist and researcher. The current work examines the movements in the Earth System stemming from the man-made environmental and biodiversity crises.
The Ocean-Lands: Mud Within the Earth System builds on previous works exploring the interrelations between landscape, language, politics, financialisation, law, geology, biology, economics, natural history and the Earth System. Research outputs take the form of film and large-scale drawn mappings, distributed in exhibitions, screenings, publications, and pod casts.
Luther’s work has been presented in Biennales and Triennales [such as Venice, Singapore, Echigo-Tsumari, Auckland, Göteborg and Sao Paulo]; museums [Arnhem, Moderna Museum, Kunsthaus Bregenz, The New Museum, Museo Tamayo, Smart Museum]; exhibitions [like Beyond Green: Towards a Sustainable Art, 48C Public.Art.Ecology, Über Lebenskunst and Weather Report: Art & Climate Change]: as well as film festivals [such as CPH:DOX* – Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival and the Perth International Film Festival].
Aoife Monks
Aoife Monks is Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries at QMUL and is Director of the QM Centre for Creative Collaboration. She recently completed a research project examining the effects of AI on the creative workforce with the Alan Turing Institute and the Institute for the Future of Work.
María José Munguía-Romero
Maria Jose is a Textile Engineer and PhD candidate at Queen Mary University of London, specialising in sustainability within the footwear and fashion industries. Her work explores the challenges of sustainability in the trainers industry and strategies to reduce its environmental footprint. She has collaborated with SMEs on sustainability initiatives and worked with the London College of Fashion to produce a report on the environmental impact of trainers. Her industry background provides a practical perspective that connects her research to real-world applications, aiming to bridge the gap between industry and academia.
Mark Jetsaphon Niyompatama
Mark Niyompatama is lecturer in law in the School of Law, QMUL. His current research focuses on artificial intelligence and copyright regimes specifically in AI-generated fashion designs across multiple jurisdictions. His interests extend also to competition law in the fashion industry, and wider topics in corporate and commercial law. Mark undertook his PhD studies at CCLS, QMUL, where he explored protection of sculpture and silhouette in fashion.
Trupti Panigrahi
Trupti is a qualified lawyer and a law academic from India. She is currently pursuing her doctoral studies in the Centre for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS), QMUL as an Arts and Humanities Research Council – London Arts and Humanities Partnership (AHRC-LAHP) Scholar. Trupti’s research examines the peculiarity of Indian classical dances and the scope of their protection within Indian copyright law, the relevance of copyright law to innovation in Indian classical dance choreographies, as well as the important interaction between copyright claims of choreographers and personality rights of celebrities who may have popularised that choreography. Trupti is an Odissi Dancer and has performed in various prestigious National/International platforms. Trupti is passionate about promoting and preserving Indian culture and heritage.
Metka Potocnik
Dr Metka Potočnik (she/her/hers) is the Associate Director of the Institute for IP and Social Justice (a US not-for-profit), the Director of The F-List for Music (a UK not-for-profit), the lead of their Gender in Music Research Hub, and a trustee of Donne, Women in Music (a UK charity). She is a Senior Lecturer in Law and the Head of the Law Research Centre at the University of Wolverhampton, School of Business and Law. She is the author of A Feminist Reconstruction of Intellectual Property Laws in Music (EE, 2025).
Eden Sarid
Eden Sarid is a Lecturer in Law in the Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London, where he specialises in Intellectual Property Law. His research explores the regulatory, social, economic, and cultural conditions under which creative production succeeds or fails. Dr. Sarid's research is highly interdisciplinary, employing empirical, socio-legal, historical, and queer perspectives to create a comprehensive and nuanced approach to understanding complex legal issues. His current research project explores creative economies that produce high volumes of creativity in the absence of IP law, such as elite-chefs, tattoo artists, and drag queens.
Rose Sinclair MBE
Rose Sinclair MBE is a Reader in Design Education, Goldsmiths, University of London.
Rose was awarded an MBE in 2024 for Services to the Arts. With a career both in Textiles and Design Education spanning over 20 years, Rose brings a distinct view to the work she does crossing both her design, curatorial and academic practice. Her PhD doctoral research is distinctive with its focus on Black British women their crafting practices, discussed through textiles networks such as Dorcas Clubs. Rose’s works utilises public engagement and participatory immersive workshops, in spaces such as the V&A London, The Garden Museum and the British Library, House for an Art Lover, and Timespan in Helmsdale, Scotland. Her work on Dorcas Clubs has featured on national TV in ‘Craftivism: Making a Difference’ BBC4 Feb 2021, alongside interviews on BBC Woman’s Hour, and BBC Witness History. She co-curated the first retrospective of Caribbean textile designer Althea McNish, in 2022 at the William Morris Gallery 'Althea McNish: Colour is Mine' and The Whitworth in Manchester. Rose ‘s latest research, is focused on the first monograph about Althea McNish. Her latest co-curated work with Craftspace, ‘Dorcas Stories from the Front Room, Textiles Narratives, Now and Then’ (23rd Sept – 29th October 2024) discussed the legacy of the Windrush generation through craft. Rose has authored several textile books and chapters, her most recent works being ‘Tracing back to trace forwards, What it means/takes to be a Black Designer' in (2021), Igoe (Ed) Textile Design Theory in the Making; Does Design do Race (Dec 2022) in Hardy (Ed) Debates in Design & Technology Education'. She is on the International Advisory board for Textile: Journal of Cloth and Culture and is Co-Editor of the Journal of Textile Research and Practice. Previously Chair of the Equity Advisory Council at the Crafts Council, Rose is now a Trustee at the Crafts Council, a Trustee of the Textile Society UK, and a Trustee at The William Morris Gallery and an Heritage Crafts Ambassador Heritage Crafts UK, and an Associate member of the APPG Group for Craft, and a founding member of the UBAE (United Black Art Educators) which is part of the NSEAD.
Frantzeska Papadopoulou Skarp
Frantzeska Papadopoulou Skarp is Professor of Intellectual Property Rights and the Chair of Intellectual Property at the Law Faculty, Stockholm University. Papadopoulou is a member of the Research Council of the Law Faculty at Stockholm University and the Chair of IFIM (Research Institute for Intellectual Property Rights and Market Rights). She is the editor-in-chief and founder of the Stockholm Intellectual Property Law Review and a member of the Board of the National Library of Sweden. Papadopoulou is the co-founder of the Nordic Fashion and Design Network, and with Johanna Gibson she is co-editor of The Fashion Law Library for Hart Publishing.
Jaime Stapleton
Jaime Stapleton is an editor and writer based in Copenhagen. He is joint author, with Rikke Luther, of We Lost Control Again (2026) - a book that attempts to construct the international architecture international political and aesthetic orders in the wake of the 20th centuries wars, economic ideologies and the exploding technological intermediation of social relations. Stapleton’s contribution - The Global Commons in Context - explores cross-border attempts to conceptualise the ‘Earth System’ on terms given by concepts of property, contract and liability, and western ontology systems more broadly.
Jaime trained as an artist and later worked in the art market before becoming art historian. His doctorate Art, Intellectual Property and the Knowledge Economy was supervised by philosopher Howard Caygill, and examined in 2002 by sociologists Scott Lash and Alan Scott. An early critic of the ‘knowledge economy’, he later worked on intellectual property-related problems for the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufacture and Commerce, the National Office of Arts Council England, and as a consultant to the Creative Industries Division of the World Intellectual Property Organisation in Geneva.
In his late 40s, he underwent treatment for an arterio-venous malformation, a rare neurological condition that resulted in a loss of cognitive function, memory and motor skills. When not noodling with exotic brain injuries, he works primarily as an editor, but retains an interest in the history of concepts, political history, and contemporary international relations. His currently working on the way that social norms of ‘genre and cliché’ structure policy reactions to the expanding crises within the Earth’s system.
Gavin Sutter
Gavin Sutter is Senior Lecturer in Media Law in CCLS, QMUL and Deputy Director of FIVE LEAF. Gavin researches and teaches in all areas of media law, theatre and the performing arts, and has published widely on various aspects of media law. His scholarly interests have a particular focus on the regulation of a wide variety of media content, from defamation and privacy through obscene pornography, to the law regulating the reporting of proceedings before the court system. His current writing is focused on the forthcoming Second Edition of “Media Law and Regulation” (Callendar Smith, Goldberg & Sutter, OUP), as well as a developmental project on “privacy by design” as enshrined in the GDPR, in a social media context. He also continues to contribute to the ongoing consultative process surrounding the Scottish Defamation Bill. He is the Academic member for QMUL’s ELSA group’s work on the ongoing International Research Group on Internet Censorship.
Stina Teilmann-Lock
Stina Teilmann-Lock is Associate-Professor in the Copenhagen Business School and Director of the Governance, Culture, Learning Unit. Her primary research areas include intellectual property and sustainability, creativity and emerging technologies, and histories of design, technology and copyright, with a particular interest in responsible design innovation in Danish companies and startups, while addressing the challenges of value destruction caused by unauthorised copying of designs. Her research considers the role of design and the legal protection of design in advancing the green transition, including through incentive structures within intellectual property regimes, seeking to enhance human creativity at the intersection of intellectual property, new technologies and business.
Kiera Vaclavik
Kiera Vaclavik is Professor in the School of Arts, QMUL, where she is Director of the Centre for Childhood Cultures. Her research focuses on children’s literature and childhood culture from around 1850 to the present, including questions around fashion, adaptation and reception, and museum studies. Her work includes collaborations with individuals and institutions across the creative and cultural industries, including the Victoria & Albert Museum, the London Symphony Orchestra, and Liberty department store.
Guilherme Vasconcelos Vilaça
Guilherme Vasconcelos Vilaça is Professor at the Law Department of Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) since August 2023. Guilherme researches the cultural and aesthetics foundations of legal experience and law’s role in social ordering. His transdisciplinary approach spans the fields of law and humanities, semiotics, aesthetics, virtue ethics, transnational legal theory, legal education, philosophy, and systems theory. He is also interested in Chinese philosophy and its application to international relations and international law.
Guilherme has a Degree in law (Universidade Nova de Lisboa), a Joint LLM in law and economics (Universities of Bologna, Hamburg and Haifa), and a PhD in social and political sciences from the EUI. Before joining ITAM in 2019, Guilherme held appointments at the University of Helsinki, Xi’an Jiaotong University, La Sapienza, The University of Queensland, and James Cook University. He further taught intensive seminars at National University of Singapore and Universidad de Los Andes. He is a regular visiting faculty member of Sciences Po Law School, and among other institutions, has also visited Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, Bocconi University, and the Max Planck (Heidelberg).
Guilherme’s research has appeared in, among others, Law and Critique, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, German Law Journal, International Theory, Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence, Public Humanities, and the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law. Chapters appeared with the publishers Springer, Edward Elgar and L’Harmattan. For Cambridge University Press, he co-edited, with Maria Varaki, Ethical Leadership in International Organizations: Concepts, Narratives, Judgment, and Assessment, the first sustained discussion of the potential and limits of virtue ethics in international affairs.
Guilherme was the recipient of Chinese regional and national research grants and is currently a member of the Mexican National System of Researchers (SNII, Level 1). Guilherme is an advisory board member of Isonomía – Revista de teoría y filosofía del derecho, the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, Calumet – Intercultural Law and Humanities Review, and the new CEU Press “Law, Aesthetics and Art” series.
Guilherme is currently co-editing, with Benjamin Goh, the Law and Comics section for Springer’s 10-volume project, edited by Anne Wagner, The International Handbook of Legal Language and Communication. As a Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow, Guilherme will work on the completion of a monograph entitled Visions of Law under contract with The University of Michigan Press.
Carey Young
Carey Young is Professor of Fine Art at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, and an internationally recognised visual artist whose work has interrogated the aesthetics, politics and fictions of law for over twenty five years. Working across video, photography, performance and text, she explores law’s entanglements with gender and power, often through collaborations with lawyers and legal scholars. Her work is held in major museum collections and has been exhibited widely, including solo shows at Modern Art Oxford (2023) and the Power Plant, Toronto (2009), and group shows at Tate Britain, the Hayward Gallery, Jeu de Paume, Centre Pompidou and MoMA PS1 (New York). She received a Paul Hamlyn Award (2021) and a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2022), and is represented by Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.