Prakesh Daswani

Chief Executive, Cultural Co-operation

PrakashDiswaniPrakash Daswani, Chief Executive of Cultural Co-operation, is a cultural activist who has worked at the forefront of inter-cultural arts theory and practice in Britain continuously since 1979.

He has conceived, directed and produced several ground-breaking international and inter-faith arts projects involving guest visiting artists from around the world alongside UK-based ones: some 40 world culture festivals; world theatre seasons; conferences on International Cultural Relations and Literature & Exile; and cross-cultural educational residencies. These have featured some 4,000 artists from 75 countries and been attended by around three million people.

With the late Robert Atkins, he set up and ran the Commonwealth Institute's Arts Centre (1980-87) and later founded Cultural Co-operation, an independent arts and education charity in 1987. Together, they were the UK members of EEAC (1980-90), a high-level consortium comprising heads of eight leading world culture institutions in France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Switzerland and Britain, that joined forces throughout the year to create and deliver collaborative international arts projects continent-wide.

He served on the Boards of Minority Arts Advisory Service (1985-7), Community Music (1987-9) and Greater London Arts (1988-9), became a graduate of Common Purpose in 2002 and is a Fellow of the RSA. He was UK juror on the EU's Culture 2000 selection panel. In 2002, he qualified as an executive management coach to assist the professional development of creative practitioners in London's diaspora communities. From 1999-2003, he acted as expert adviser to the Ford Foundation in the Palestinian territories, Zanzibar and Kenya and, since 2008, to the Mayor of London's Commission on African and Asian Heritage.

He is a graduate in English (Lancaster) and postgraduate in both Arts Administration (City University) and Social Anthropology (London School of Economics), who has written widely, including "The Management of Cultural Pluralism in Europe" (1995) for UNESCO, plus talks and papers (1983-2008) on cultural diversity, global identities and inter-culturalism.

In 2008 the European Cultural Foundation UK Committee nominated him for the inaugural Princess Margriet Award for Cultural Diversity, created to mark the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue.