Previously Director of Cultural & Creative Projects at the Institute, David has taken up the role following the departure of previous Director Catherine Richardson.
His career includes senior roles at major international creative and educational institutions, including a decade on London’s South Bank where he was founding director of the legendary Meltdown Festival; he was Executive & Artistic Director of UCLA Live, the public arts unit of the University of California in Los Angeles, one of America’s largest campus-based public presenters; and Artistic Director of the Adelaide Festival in Australia.
Core to the University’s civic mission, iCCi deliver an extensive public programme through Gulbenkian Arts Centre, including the annual bOing! Family Festival – the University’s largest public outreach event; they reach over 10,000 under 25s per year with exciting, creative experiences, and add extensively to student life on campus through these programmes.
Creative Estuary, a multi-million pound project to transform the 60 miles of the Thames Estuary into one of the most exciting cultural hubs in the world, sits within the Institute and in 2026 iCCi will open the University’s new state-of-the-art Digital Creative Production Studio, Docking Station in the Chatham Historic Dockyard in Medway.
David Sefton will continue his role as Artistic Director of the Gulbenkian Arts Centre, programming the annual artistic season across the venues.
Sefton comments: “We have achieved some amazing things in our first four years and I’m genuinely thrilled to be leading the Institute into the next phase. The Arts Centre, Boing and our Art 31 outreach programme are already a significant part of the cultural life of Kent; Creative Estuary goes from strength to strength in its place-shaping work in Kent and Essex; and with the opening of Docking Station the Institute enters a whole new era in all its work in Medway – exciting times ahead!”