Speakers

Mark Davy founded Futurecity in 2007 as a culture and placemaking consultancy and a platform for the culture-driven development of our urban centres. He is a passionate leader driven by a commitment to cultural excellence in our cities and his commercial and intellectual knowledge place him at the forefront of the debate about the changing role and purpose of modern cities.

As the Founder of Futurecity, Mark has produced over 125 cultural strategies, brokered over 20 cultural partnerships, and worked on over 100 artist commissions for clients across four continents. He has won a large number of major culture and placemaking projects and played a leadership role in setting up new creative districts and neighbourhoods in the UK and internationally. He has raised millions of pounds of new funding for the arts by persuading the private sector of the importance of culture led placemaking and the role of the arts in creating new places. He has brokered new galleries, studios and funding for the Royal Academy, Chelsea College of Art and Design and the Royal College of Art. He created the conditions for the English National Ballet to relocate to a new funded facility on City Island in London’s East End for property developer Ballymore and recently brokered a major partnership that will see the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra move its headquarters to Quintain’s Wembley Park from May 2020.

As Futurecity extends its impact globally, Mark is a regular speaker at cities around the world, whether thought leadership events, such as the TEDx, GLA symposia, Smart City and Future City talks, industry workshops, international art fairs and urban development conferences. In 2015 he developed a 2-year thought leadership programme ‘Urban research Unit’ with Grimshaw architects that compared the growth and activity of New York and London.

Globally, Mark Davy has promoted Futurecity’s placemaking experience to a growing property market to developers, urban regeneration agencies and city authorities. In Australia, Mark led the development of cultural and public art strategies for QIC’s flagship stores in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne; and cultural placemaking strategies for Sydney Opera House, Central to Eveleigh Urban Transformation and Transport project and the Australian Technology Park. In the US, Mark developed the ‘Avenues to the Arts’ creative district programme for the Boston Foundation and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. The ‘Three Pillars’ consisting of the Civic, Culture and Commercial Sectors established a framework for the Avenues to the Arts as a means to deliver new cultural spaces, ambitious public artworks and new placemaking-driven, real-estate projects, new arts and business partnerships and significant new funding opportunities.

In 2016, Mark co-founded FuturePace, a strategic two-year initiative by Futurecity and Pace London that combined the curatorial expertise of Pace with the cultural placemaking experience of Futurecity. FuturePace took the collaborative energies of an international group of artists and offered a pioneering approach to commissioning public art that created an impactful, engaging and exhilarating ’gallery without walls’. FuturePace was part of the winning team for Illuminated River, working with artist Leo Villareal, who will soon illuminate 15 bridges throughout central London.