Jury

Mariam “Maka” Dvalishvili has an impressive record of expertise and dedication to Georgian arts, crafts and culture. While attaining a global educational background in Fine Arts, Art History (Georgian Academy of Fine Art, Tbilisi), Technical Aesthetics (USSR Design Institute, Moscow), Arts Marketing (McGowan Fine Arts, Concord), Arts Preservation (USIA/Meridian International Center) and Arts Management (University of Turin), Dvalishvili has continually worked to raise awareness and promote Georgian studies and Georgian art and culture.

Her expertise on this subject has been called upon in the world of academia as a Fulbright visiting lecturer, and later as adjunct Professor, at Columbia University, New York; in galleries and museums in the roles of artistic director, curator and consultant and at institutional level as an advisor on cultural affairs to the Permanent Mission of Georgia to the United Nations, to name just a few examples.

Dvalishvili is currently a lecturer of Art and Culture Management and Administration at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts and is President of the Georgian Arts & Culture Center. The educational programme of the latter was a laureate of the EU Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Awards in 2017 in the category Education, Training & Awareness-raising.

Dr. Natalia Moussienko, is a member of the Internal Advisory Committee of Europa Nostra and is a Board Member of the NGO “Initiative for St. Andrew Passage” in Kiev, Ukraine which has been a Europa Nostra member-organisation since 2014.

Dr. Moussienko is currently a leading research fellow in the Modern Art Research Institute of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine in Kiev. She studied philosophy at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kiev, where she obtained her master’s degree and subsequently at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine where she received her doctorate. She is the author of numerous articles and five books on the theory and history of culture, cultural diplomacy, urbanism and cinema and has been published internationally. Moussienko initiated and organised three Cultural Diplomacy Forums in in Kiev (in 2015, 2016 and 2017). The forthcoming forum “Culture Heritage matters to Cultural Diplomacy” will be held in the summer of 2018 in the framework of the European Year of Cultural Heritage.

Dr. Moussienko is a voice for cultural heritage on a national level, writing for national magazines Ukrainian Culture, Monuments of Ukraine as well as a national weekly newspaper, Culture and Life. In addition, she was co-editor of three issues of Agora, a publication devoted to the theoretical bases of cultural diplomacy and its practical application. In 2016, the Academy of Art of Ukraine awarded a Gold Medal to Dr. Moussienko for her achievements in cultural diplomacy and cultural heritage. She has been recognised internationally for her work, having been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 2011-2012 for her research, “Public Art in the City’s Identity Formation: American Experience in Ukrainian Realities” along with a Senior Grant of the Ministry of Culture of Poland in 2017 for her research “Polish Artists and the Ukrainian Maidan”.

Furthermore, Dr. Moussienko is an Advisory Council Member of the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., USA. She is a member of the National Union of Filmmakers of Ukraine, National Oscar Committee, and the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESСI).

Etienne Poncelet is Architecte en Chef des Monuments Historiques, responsible for the “Arc de Triomphe” and the “VIIIe arondissement” of Paris, for the cities of Beauvais and Senlis and the estates of Chantilly and Pierrefonds, as well as for the French Antilles.

As an architect he has restored over 300 monuments, and on the administrative level is the General Inspector for the historic monuments of Aquitaine and Normandy. He is also a corresponding member of the “Académie d’Architecture”.

Internationally he has been active as President of the French ICOMOS Committee between 1997 and 2001, and as Vice-President of the Scientific Council of Europa Nostra since 1989.

Jacques de Saussure was a Managing Partner of the Pictet Group from 1987 to 2016, and acted as Senior Managing Partner from 2010 until his retirement in June 2016. He remains Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of Banque Pictet & Cie SA. He is also active as Chairman of the Board of two start-up companies, and sits on the Board of the Swiss Bankers Association.Jacques is a member of the Committee of the Board of Directors of the Swiss Bankers Association, having previously served on the Board of the Swiss Stock Exchange and SIX Group AG, as well as its subsidiary EUREX AG.

Jacques attended Collège Calvin in Geneva, where he graduated with a degree in Greek and Latin. He went on to study at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne, where he earned a degree in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science. He also has an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Among his many other activities, Jacques has a keen personal interest in the restoration of historic buildings. As part of his family heritage, he has the privilege of owning two houses of great historical and architectural significance, and over the years has been actively involved in their restoration. This has provided a first-hand opportunity to gain a sound knowledge and true appreciation of this intricate process.

Prof. Dr. Markus Hilgert is a specialist in Ancient Near Eastern Studies and Cultural Heritage Research. He is the current Secretary-General of Kulturstiftung der Länder. Previous to this post he was Director of the Ancient Near East Museum at the Pergamonmuseum in Berlin from 2014 to 2018 and from 2007 until 2014, Hilgert held a chair for Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Heidelberg University.

Hilgert is the coordinator of the national research alliance ILLICID focusing on the illicit traffic with cultural property in Germany and the director of the “Center for Digital Cultural Heritage in Museums” (CEDICUM) at the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. In addition, Hilgert is the coordinator of the national program “museum4punkt0 – Digital Strategies for the Museum of the Future” under the auspices of the Federal Commissioner for Culture and Media.

Hilgert is a member of several governing bodies and advisory boards, including the German Commission for UNESCO (since 2016), the Foundation Board of the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas (ALIPH; since 2017), the Advisory Group of the Cultural Protection Fund of the British Council (since 2017), and the Disaster Risk Management Committee of the International Council of Museums (since 2017).

In 2016, Hilgert was named the “National Correspondent for the Blue Shield in Germany” and was elected founding President of Blue Shield Germany in 2017. He is also the Vice President of the German Association for Archeology. Hilgert holds honorary professorships at Heidelberg University, Marburg University, and Berlin University (Freie Universität).

Koenraad Van Balen graduated as an Engineer Architect at the KU Leuven (Belgium) in 1979; he obtained a post-graduate degree in architectural conservation in 1984 and he obtained a Ph.D in Engineering in 1991 at the KU Leuven. He is a full-professor at the KU Leuven in the Civil Engineering department. Van Balen carries out research and teaches on binders, masonry and sustainable construction methods. He is the director of the Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation (RLICC) at the University of Leuven.

He is the holder of the UNESCO Chair on preventive conservation, monitoring and maintenance of monuments and sites since 2008. He is member of ICOMOS and was the first secretary-general of the International Scientific Committee on the Analysis, Repair of Structures of the Architectural Heritage (ISCARSAH). He has long been member of the general assembly of Monumentenwacht Vlaanderen.

He is or has been an advisor to, amongst others, the Council of Europe, the European Commission, and the Getty Foundation. In 2002-2003 he was a visiting scholar at the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles. He supervises research carried out at the Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation related to various aspects of investigation, valuing and managing (World) Heritage.

Amongst others he coordinated the research carried out by the RLICC on Heritage Counts for Europe in collaboration with Europa Nostra. He is member of the Scientific Committee of the European wide research coordination initiative “Joint Program Initiative: Cultural Heritage (JPI-CH)”.

Charles Pictet has had a long career in private banking, which he began in 1969 in the eponymous Pictet & Cie. There he became a Senior Partner for almost 10 years until 2005, at which time he joined the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA). Throughout the years, he was also member of various professional committees and councils. Alongside his professional career, he has also been very active in the cultural domain, his second field of expertise. He realised this aspiration within Pictet’s bank which has always had a tradition of supporting various organizations or projects in this field. Today the bank supports cultural programs through a foundation.

Mr. Pictet also supports similar programs on a personal basis, in particular as a former President of the Circle of the Grand Théâtre de Genève from 2002 to 2010. He has also been the Vice-president of the Council of Foundation of the International Red Cross Museum since 2007. He has also been active in the project for the restoration of the windmills of Patmos which previously won a European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Award in 2012.

Agni Petridou is highly qualified in restoration of monuments, rehabilitation of historic settlements and urban centers, with a Master in Architecture (University of Florence, Italy), a Master of Arts in Town and Country Planning (UWE, Bristol, UK), a Postgraduate Degree in Urban Conservation from the International Centre (ICCROM), and a Diploma in Specialization for the Restoration of Monuments from the University of Rome.

Currently, she is working as the “City Engineer” (the Director of the Technical Services) of the Nicosia Municipality. Her key qualification concerns rehabilitation of historic settlements in post-conflict situations and negotiation abilities between conflicting parts. She is a member of several international professional organizations, including the Roster of Experts on Historic Preservation of The Commonwealth Secretariat – Technical Division (1989 – present), the Scientific Council (2008 – present) and Council (2011 – present) of Europa Nostra, and the bi-communal Technical Committee for the Cultural heritage in Cyprus (2009 – present).

Agni Petridou received The Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2007) for her contribution to the rehabilitation of the walled city of Nicosia.

Marianne R. Ytterdal, Assistant Professor at Aalesund University College in Norway, covering Mercantile, Maritime, and Technical English, Cultural Differences and Project Presentations, recently retired. She studied English and American Languages and Background, History of Art, Nordic languages and literature and Educational Science at the Universities of Bergen, Oslo and Trondheim. She has been active within Europa Nostra since 2000, in the years 2007 – 2009 in the new governance group.

She is currently President of the Board of the Kjell Holm Foundation in Norway, which she joined in 2003. For 25 years, the last five as President, she was board member of Fortidsminneforeningen: The Society for the Preservation of Norwegian Ancient Monuments, an NGO that owns and maintains 41 properties of cultural significance. Other cultural heritage boards of interest are: the European Network of National Heritage Organisations, Jugendstilsenteret (The Norwegain Art Nouveau Centre), and Den norske Kulturminnedagen (European Heritage Day).

Ytterdal has also published a number of textbooks for the teaching of Technical and Practical English, the most recent having been released in 2015.

Dr. Robert Young is currently a freelance archaeological consultant. He has wide ranging experience in University and Community Education and Training and a detailed knowledge of practical archaeological techniques. He is widely-published and is a well regarded expert in landscape survey, excavation and small finds analysis.

Having obtained a PhD from the University of Durham in 1984, Dr. Young went on to teaching positions at both the University of Wales and the University of Leicester. In his later work with Northumberland National Park Authority (NNPA) and English Heritage/Historic England (EH) he developed policy and strategy for the care and conservation of the historic environment of the north east of England.

Large numbers of students and local community members have received fieldwork training in the course of his university and community based work on archaeological sites across the UK. He is currently involved in running a branch of the Council for British Archaeology’s Young Archaeologists Club at Newcastle University and regularly gives talk to local archaeology and community groups on practical archaeology topics and related heritage issues.