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Isabella SantaolallaJoined Sandblast in 2005
Isabel is Professor of Spanish and Film Studies at Roehampton University, London. She is interested in questions of difference and inequality, as well as in migrations, diasporas and transnationalism, particularly in relation to the cinema and the audiovisual media. Her teaching focuses on Hispanic cultures and societies, with special emphasis on contemporary Spanish cinema and media. She coordinates the final-year module ‘Service Learning in Spanish’, where students obtain credits through six-month work placements in London-based voluntary organisations or educational institutions connected with the Spanish-speaking world. Her most recent research project focuses on the cinema and the Saharawi people. She applied for funding from the British Academy to compile a database of materials relating to the Western Sahara, with special emphasis on the audiovisual media. The result is the Western Sahara Audiovisual Database, an online, searchable and downloadable database freely accessible to researchers and to anyone interested in the Western Sahara. As part of this same project, she also coordinated a team to carry out an audiovisual workshop in the Dakhla refugee camp in May 2009. Five of the members of this team were young graduates from Spain who had been awarded a six-month EU-funded internship to work at Roehampton’s Hispanic Research Centre on this project. The results may be viewed on www.justmessaging.com, an interactive website where written or recorded messages may be posted to encourage communication between the Saharawi and the rest of the world. Members of the team also visited Dakhla and other camps in April 2010, in order to continue working on the project, and identify further possible areas of development. For more information, visit Sandblast’s Oral Histories Projects. Isabel also takes an active part in the organisation of a number of film festivals, such as the annual London Spanish Film Festival. More recently, she has also been closely involved with FISahara, the Sahara International Film Festival, and, in collaboration with Stefan Simanowitz, has published ‘A Cinematic Refuge in the Desert. The Sahara International Film Festival’, in Film Festival Yearbook 2. Film Festivals and Imagined Communities, eds. Iordanova and Cheung (St Andrews University Film Studies, 2010). [download here] Isabel is a member of the board of trustees of Sandblast, and a member of Amnesty International, UNICEF and Educación sin Fronteras. For further information please visit http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/staff/IsabelSantaolalla/ Philip GeorgeJoined Sandblast in 2005 Philip George is Director of the Practice at Whiteside & Knowles Solicitors. He has vast experience in a wide range of legal practice and matters. He is passionate about the law and its “mysteries”, and consequently takes pride in keeping up with the law and its up to date workings and tactics. As he is a Solicitor who “did everything” after he qualified he has kept an interest in all aspects of law, although he specialises in personal injury, dispute resolution (civil litigation) and employment law. As a matter concerning international law, the situation in Western Sahara drew Philip’s attention and he became trustee on the charity board. Giles Foreman Andy Craven Paolo San Martin |
