The Board
Candice Tucker
Founder and Director
Candice, a Politics and International Relations graduate from the University of Nottingham, accelerated her career with a LUX magazine traineeship, progressing to Online Editor and Coordinator. Notable achievements include managing clients including Deutsche Bank Wealth Management, where she focused on strategy around Frieze art fair and their various sustainability initiatives around the blue economy.
Managing the Louis Roederer Photography Prize for Sustainability, Candice liaised with influential figures, cultivating relationships with major global collectors, curators and artists during her tenure at LUX, which deepened her understanding of the intricacies within the collecting sphere.
Maria Sukkar
Advisor
Maria Sukkar is a collector and philanthropist based in London. Maria is a member of the International Council at Tate. She chairs their Middle Eastern Acquisitions Committee (MENAAC) and sits on their Photography Acquisitions Committee (PAC). Maria is a trustee of the ICA and is a member of the CaMMEA group of the British Museum and is a Strategic Advisor of the Delfina Foundation. She also sits on the Commissioning Committee at the Hayward Gallery. She supports the Showroom, the Chisenhale, the Camden Art Centre, the South London Gallery and the Design Museum. Whilst in Lebanon Maria supported the Beirut Art Centre and the Homeworks Space.
She sits on the Solomon Guggenheim Directors Circle and on the New Museum International Leadership Council in New York.
Maria is on the Photo London Founders Committee as well as their Advisory Board and is a nominator of the Prix Pictet photography prize. Maria is a trustee of the St Jude’s Cancer Centre for Children (Beirut-London) and a vice-chair of the Chain of Hope (London).
Azu Nwagbogu
Advisor
Azu Nwagbogu is an internationally acclaimed curator, interested in evolving new models of engagement with questions of decolonization, restitution, and repatriation. In his practice, the exhibition becomes an experimental site for reflection, civic engagement, ecology and repatriation – both tangible and symbolic.
Nwagbogu is the Founder and Director of African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), a non- profit organisation based in Lagos, Nigeria. He also serves as Founder and Director of LagosPhoto Festival, an annual international arts festival of photography held in Lagos.
He is the publisher of Art Base Africa, a virtual space to discover and learn about contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas. In 2021, Nwagbogu was awarded “Curator of Year 2021” by the Royal Photographic Society, UK, and also listed amongst the hundred most influential people in the art world by ArtReview.
In 2021, Nwagbogu launched the project “Dig Where You Stand (DWYS) – From Coast to Coast” which offers a new model for institutional building and engagement, with questions of decolonization, restitution and repatriation, the exhibition took place in Ibrahim’s Mahama’s
culture hub SCCA in Tamale, Ghana.
Most recently in 2023, Nwagbogu was appointed “Explorer at Large” by National Geographic Society to serve as an ambassador for the Organization and receive support to continue his storytelling work across Africa and globally, a title is bestowed on a select few global changemakers. Nwagbogu’s primary interest is in reinventing the idea of the museum and its role as a civic space for engagement for society at large.
Alia Al-Senussi
Advisor
Princess Alia Al-Senussi, PhD, is an active member of the contemporary art world with a focus on cultural strategy and patronage systems. She is a cultural strategist, writer, patron, public speaker and academic. Princess Alia has served as Art Basel’s UK and MENA Representative for over a decade, and is also currently Senior Advisor, International Outreach for Art Basel.
In 2019 she was appointed Senior Advisor to the Ministry of Culture, Saudi Arabia, where she focuses on developing international partnerships whilst working on a variety of projects across the Ministry’s commissions and the Diriyah Biennale Foundation. Princess Alia is a visiting lecturer at Brown University’s Watson Institute, working with the Middle East Studies Program.
Princess Alia is currently a member of the Tate Modern Advisory Council (London), the Strategic Advisory Panel of the Delfina Foundation (London), the Board of Trustees of The Showroom (London), the Board of Trustees of FUNTASIA/Elisa Sednaoui Foundation (UK / Egypt / Italy), the Board of Governors of Aiglon College (Switzerland) as well as a member of Therme Advisory Board (Germany) and the UCCA Contemporary Circle (China).
She continues to serve as a founding member of the Tate’s Acquisitions Committee for the Middle East and North Africa, the Board of 1:54 The African Art Fair, and the Middle East Circle of the Guggenheim, the Middle East Studies Advisory Committee at Brown University, the Serpentine Future Contemporaries (and founding committee member) as well as was a founding member of the Board of Patrons of Art Dubai, having played an integral role in the founding of the fair. Princess Alia is also a member of the British Museum committee for the acquisition of Middle Eastern art.
Dr Alia has a PhD in Politics from SOAS (London), examining the nexus of power and cultural patronage, featuring Saudi Arabia as a case study. She graduated Magna Cum Laude in International Relations (honors) and Middle East Studies from Brown University and holds an MA in Political Science from Brown and an MSc in Law, Anthropology and Society from the London School of Economics.
Andrew Renton
Advisor
Andrew Renton is a Professor of Curating at Goldsmiths University of London. He took over running the Curating programme in 2003, and redesigned the programme into its current MFA format, as well as establishing a practice-based PhD in the field. Prior to Goldsmiths he was Slade Curator at Slade School of Art, and has lectured widely internationally. Andrew Renton works as a writer and curator. He is interested in the different languages and registers that might be possible in response to the work of art.
As a curator his recent concern has been with the ethical encounter with the object, its physicality and context. He has extensive experience and research in contemporary collecting practices.
He has curated many shows internationally, including the first Manifesta in Rotterdam1996, Walter Benjamin’s Briefcase, Porto 1994, Browser in Vancouver 1997 and London 1998, Total Object Complete with Missing Parts, Glasgow 2001, Stay Forever and Ever and Ever at South London Gallery, 2007, Come, Come, Come into my World at the Ellipse Foundation, Lisbon, 2007, Front of House at Parasol Unit, London 2008, and the first ArtTLV biennial in Tel Aviv, 2008. He co-curated Koen van den Broek’s retropective at SMAK, Ghent in 2010.
Until ecently he was the founding Director of Marlborough Contemporary Gallery in London where he curated some 30 exhibitions. He wrote a weekly column for the Evening Standard on art matters, and is the author and editor of numerous articles, books and monographs on art. He was a member of the jury for the 2006 Turner Prize, and is a board member and trustee of several arts organisations such as the Showroom and the Drawing Room. He advises many collections, museums and institutions, and the British Government Art Collection.
Debbie Howard
Fair Administrator
Debbie Howard has managed the administration of several national major companies in the legal and investment sectors. She has built up a wealth of experience in working with professional bodies. Debbie is responsible for the management and collation of all collections within the fair.