Humanitarian Response
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MEMBERS
Fionnuala Rogers - CHAIRBio
Fionnuala Rogers is an international art and cultural property lawyer and Chair of the UK Committee for the Blue Shield. She is also a member of the Blue Shield International Illegal Trade Working Group and also represented Blue Shield on the UK Government Illegal Trade Working Group, hosted by DCMS. Fionnuala has been a member of UK Blue Shield since 2015, and Chair since 2020. Fionnuala is also founder and director of Canvas Art Law, Trustee of the Arab British Centre, and founding Trustee of CHARD (Cultural Heritage at Risk Database). With over 12 years of experience in art, cultural property, and heritage, Fionnuala is a prominent advisor in international regulation and policy on heritage issues, assisting governments and policymakers in drafting and amending international legislation related to cultural property protection and illicit trafficking. She encourages compliance with international best practices and fosters cultural collaborations between state parties. Fionnuala has extensive experience in the Middle East region. |
Rob BevanBio
Robert Bevan is an author and journalist writing on architecture, heritage and cities as well as a heritage consultant. He is the author of Monumental Lies: Culture Wars and the Truth about the Past (Verso), a book of the year for the Financial Times and the Art Newspaper. His previous book, The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War was described as “ground-breaking” by the New York Review of Books. His work has been translated into several languages. Robert is the architecture critic for the Evening Standard in London and has written for newspapers, architecture and arts magazines internationally. He is also a heritage consultant with qualifications in architecture, planning and urban design. He specialises in area-based, heritage-led regeneration and heritage at risk and has been described as “one of the most compelling progressive voices in the heritage world” (Tribune). He is a member of the Mayor of London’s Commission on Diversity in the Public Realm and of ICORP, the expert committee of ICOMOS on risk preparedness. |
Nigel PollardBio
Nigel Pollard is an academic whose research focuses on treatment and perceptions of cultural heritage in the Second World War and the application of that historical experience to contemporary and future conflicts. Nigel has been a member of UK Blue Shield since 2012 Nigel is a professor in the Department of History, Heritage and Classics at Swansea University in Wales. He trained as an archaeologist, undertook fieldwork in Italy, Tunisia, Syria, Egypt and the UK and published on Roman Italy, Africa and the eastern frontier of the Roman empire. Since 2011 his main area of research has been the treatment of cultural heritage in the Second World War, especially Italy, and his monograph Bombing Pompeii: World Heritage and Military Necessity was published by The University of Michigan Press in 2020. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. He was a member of the UK military Cultural Property Protection Working Group from 2015 to 2019, and subsequently contributed to the training of the UK military Cultural property Protection Unit. He participated in the consultation on the UK Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Act 2017. |
Peter StoneBio
President, The Blue Shield. Trustee, UK Committee of the Blue Shield Peter is the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Property Protection & Peace at Newcastle University (UK). He was previously Head of the School of Arts and Cultures and Professor of Heritage Studies in the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies at Newcastle. Before joining the University in 1997, he had worked for English Heritage, as a field archaeologist, and history teacher. Since 2003 Peter’s work has focussed on the protection of heritage in armed conflict and following disasters. Peter argues that tangible and intangible heritage provides a sense of place, belonging, and identity supporting individual and communal dignity and wellbeing. Such heritage reflects our differences but, of greater importance, it celebrates and emphasises our similarities. Peter has written extensively on this topic including co-editing, with Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly, The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Iraq (2008) and editing Cultural Heritage, Ethics, and the Military (2011). Peter’s article ‘The 4 Tier approach’ in the British Army Review was instrumental in the establishment of the Cultural Property Protection Unit in UK forces. |
Emma CunliffeBio
Dr Emma Cunliffe is a Senior Research Associate within the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Property Protection and Peace at Newcastle University, and a member of the Secretariat of Blue Shield International. She is a Fellow of the Newcastle University Policy Academy, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Emma has been actively involved with BSUK since its (re)founding in 2012. She served as Secretary for much of that time until stepping down in 2023, staying on as a Member. She has over a decade of experience in researching heritage protection and destruction and international law, particularly the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, lobbying for ratification and better implementation of international law and carrying out projects with partners on the ground. She carries out military training in CPP around the world. In the UK, she has been an active contributor to policy and lobbying regarding UK implementation of the 1954 Hague Convention, and to military training. |
Hayley robertsshort bio
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Maria BlyzinskyBio
Maria is a trustee of ICOM UK (the UK branch of the International Council of Museums) with responsibility for liaison with UK Blue Shield. As such, she sits on the UKBS committee as a member of the Conflict working group. She has a longstanding interest in the protection of culture under threat, having been an advisor to Heritage Without Borders where she trained museum professionals to work in post-conflict zones. As an Anglo-Ukrainian, she is involved with numerous initiatives to support cultural heritage colleagues in Ukraine and regularly collaborates with ICOM Ukraine and the Ukrainian Institute. In 2022, she organised Heritage in Crisis - a series of online talks for ICOM UK that are now available on YouTube - and took part in a panel discussion on decolonising art, organised by the Ukrainian Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale. Maria is a London-based heritage consultant, independent curator and writer. In 2008, she co-founded The Exhibitions Team, an association of museum professionals specialising in exhibitions, collections and interpretation. Prior to that, she worked for the V&A and Royal Museums Greenwich, where she is now Curator Emeritus for the Royal Observatory. She is an alumna of the University of East Anglia’s Museum Leadership Programme, a former trustee of the National Jazz Archive, and served on the Museum Association’s Professional Development Committee. She is currently researching a book on generating ideas for exhibitions. |