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Art In Conversation is about sharing, is about inspiring a relationship with art through direct conversation with artists.

Our mission is to promote Romanian artists and designers and to create a direct connection between artists and audiences across the world.

   

We believe that the Romanian cultural space has a universality of expression which proves to be a binding factor between people and cultures around the world.

Meet the Ambassadors we’re working with to promote Romanian Art and Culture. 

ART IN CONVERSATION

ambassadors in the world

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Part of my role as Honorary Consul of Romania in the South East of England is to promote Romania, its culture, its artists, and their works. I am honoured to support Art In Conversation in their journey around the world and hope that they are successful in opening a dialogue with the minds and hearts of people. 

I am also ready to support the cooperation with artists from around the world coming to Romania for short residencies, to enjoy that fecund space of creation and take back with them and share a sense of Romania’s spirituality and rich cultural heritage. 

Contact Calin Huma at calin@artinconversation.co.uk

Calin Huma
Ambassador for Art in Conversation 
in the UK and Romania
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Dr. Aura Imbarus
Ambassador for Art in Conversation 
in Los Angeles, U.S.A.

Dr. Aura Imbarus is an awarded educator, freelance journalist, motivational speaker, and author of the critically acclaimed Amazon best-seller and Pulitzer Prize entry, Out of the Transylvania Night: A Story of Tyranny, Freedom, Love and Identity, a memoir detailing her life in Romania during the Communist regime and the self-help book, Reader’s Favorite and 2020 Best Book Awards Finalist, Conversations with the Past.

She is also the President and Founder of See Beyond Media, a company focusing on adolescents’ challenges in the 21st century, having as its launching platform See Beyond Magazine and See Beyond the Hill, a Women’s Empowerment Conference, highlighting local female entrepreneurs while giving back to the community through the Young Female Leader’s Fund.   

Dr. Imbarus has a BA in Foreign Languages; MA in American and British Studies and a PhD with Cum Laude inWorld Humanities from Lucian Blaga University, Romania; TESOL,TEFL, CLAD certificates from UCLA and California State University LA. Since 1998, she has been teaching high school and college level classes in So. Cal. Dr. Imbarus is a licensed clinical hypnotherapist, having trained with Dr. Brian Weiss and Dr. Wanita Holmes.

Dr. Aura Imbarus is a member of Royal Society of St. George, Romanian-American Chamber of Commerce Los Angeles, SACC – Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce. She sat on the Board of Wesley Foundation UCLA and supported and mentored children for Blue Heron Foundation. 

She writes for The Global Woman Magazine in London; Palos Verdes Pulse, Elephant Journal, Beverly Hills Times Magazine, The Immigrant, Hermannstader Zeitung in Transylvania and also works as a freelance journalist for Entertainment and Sports Today.

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Dr. Daniel Loubier-Profir
Ambassador for Art in Conversation 
in France and in the UK

Daniel Loubier-Profir (a.k.a. Dan Profir) is a professional actor, linguist, voice-coach and filmmaker, perfectly trilingual in English, French and Romanian. Graduate of the National Academy of Theatre and Film (Bucharest, Romania), in 1990, the Conservatoire National d’Art Dramatique – CNAD (Paris, France), in 1992 and the Université du Maine (Le Mans, France), in 1998, Dan settled in the UK in 1998, where he started his career as a professional Voice-Talent & Voice Coach.

After various collaborations with Fox Kids, Disney Channel, Cartoon Network and Jetix, in 2005, Dan opened his own voice over recording studio, in Southampton (UK), a top-notch new generation recording facility, to produce results comparable with top London studios, employing a 300+ strong Southampton based international team of voice actors, crew and staff and specialising in Multilingual A/V Production for the Corporate and Broadcast sectors.

His original business model became soon a success. In 2015, Dan expanded his business, merging with a fully equipped audio-visual facility in Bucharest, Romania, with streaming and multi-camera management capacity, as well as theatrical 5.1 Dolby audio recording.

Although CEO de facto of his expanding group, Dan choose to stay a hands-on Head of Production, traveling between Southampton and Bucharest, to be in the heart of action and lead to success the most exciting projects on role.

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Dumitru Dorin Prunariu
Ambassador for Art in Conversation 
in Romania

"Only through observing the world around us aesthetically and ethically, we developed into rational beings capable to survive in the great cosmos"  __ Igor Stoica

 

The first and only Romanian cosmonaut, Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu began his career as an engineer prior to enrolling in the Romanian Air Force. He was selected for spaceflight training in 1978 as part of the Intercosmos programme. Three years later, he joined an eight-day space mission onboard Soyuz 40 to the Salyut 6 Space Laboratory. Since then, Prunariu has held many high-ranking positions in the civil service including President of the Romanian Space Agency, Director of the Romanian Office for Science and Technology to the European Commission (ROST), Chairman of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN COPUOS), President of the Association of Space Explorers (ASE), and Vice-Chairman of the International Relations Committee of ESA. Dorin is currently working for the Romanian Association for Space Technology and Industry (ROMSPACE), a private research association contracted to the Romanian Space Agency.

Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu is a co-author of several books regarding space technology and space flight and has presented/published numerous scientific papers. He earned a degree in aerospace engineering from the University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest and a Ph.D. in the field of space flight dynamics. Prunariu is an Honorary Citizen of several cities and Doctor Honoris Causa of several higher education institutions from Romania, Republic of Moldova, and USA.

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Candy Reid-Harrop
Ambassador for Art in Conversation 
in the UK

Candy Reid-Harrop is a broadcaster, podcaster and tennis professional. 

After achieving a World Ranking in singles and doubles and subsequently taking up a tennis scholarship at an American University, Candy was hired by CNN International in Atlanta and moved from an initial producing/editing role to reporter/anchor position for the global show 'World Sport'.
12 years later having interviewed the great and good from the international sports world (including Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Serena and Venus), Candy started a Tennis Academy in the tennis hot-bed Atlanta, and coached several nationally ranked juniors, travelling to prestigious events like the Orange and Easter Bowls in Florida and Les Petits As in Tarbes, France. 
In 2018, after 22 years in the USA, Candy and family decided to return to Britain and join the David Lloyd Club in Southampton.  She coaches several tournament juniors; the University of Southampton 1st teams; 
and Surrey u18 girls, which features multiple top 10 juniors, with high ITF rankings. She also has the extreme honour of coaching the Maestro, Calin Huma!
Candy is on several tennis committees, including LTA run Female Performance and High Performance in Great Britain.  
She also regularly commentates for the WTA and ATP Tours on Amazon Prime.  

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Baron 
Michael de Styrcea

Ambassador for Art in Conversation 
in the UK and Romania

The Stîrcea family is an ancient boyar family from the area now split between Moldova (Romania), Rep. Moldova, and Ukraine (former Bucovina). In the 19th and 20th Centuries, members of the family were landowners, politicians, diplomats, and courtiers.  My grandfather, Ion Stîrcea, was a diplomat, a Senator, and Grand Master of Ceremonies at King Carol's Court. My father was a diplomat and his last posting was to the Romanian Legation in London before World War 2. My uncle, Ionel Mocsonyi-Styrcea was a diplomat and the private secretary of King Michael. The family has always supported the arts. My great-grandfather Victor was a composer, an excellent pianist, and a friend of Brahms with whom he used to play piano duets.  

 

After World War 2, the family property was confiscated by the communist regime.  My Uncle was imprisoned for 15 years for resistance to communism. After Romania joined the European Union, I obtained restitution of much of my family property in Romania including the house and park at Valeni, Neamt. This property had for many years been used as the village school and, when the school moved to new premises, it was the subject of a careful and comprehensive restoration program over seven years under the guidance of Architect Serban Sturdza. On completion of the restoration project, the House and Park were designated Historic Monuments and the restoration program won first prize in its category at the Romanian Architecture Biennale in 2018.

Michael is a patron of arts. His  “Vision for Valeni” is to create a cultural center for artists, musicians, composers, writers and poets.  For some years, he has run a successful artist residency where painters and printmakers are invited to record the landscape, the people and way of life. 

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Jacqueline Quirk
Ambassador for Art in Conversation in NYC/ NJ/DC, Florida and Hawaii

Although Jacqueline Quirk has an international career in the performing arts as an Opera Singer & Stage Director she is not a complete stranger to the world of Art.

First introduced to this field by her mother who had a career as an Art Teacher in New York for 30yrs, then by her cousin who writes about fine art & design, and was the Senior Editor for Artist Magazine in NYC.

While living in Brussels, Jacqueline had the privilege to work with Contemporary Belgium Artist Walter Villain. Jacqueline has also had the privilege to work with Artist & Sculptor Dale Chihuly and his team in two productions of the Opéra “ Bluebeards Castle by Bela Bartok in NY with the Buffalo Philharmonic, and with the Virginia Arts Festival.

Now, Jacqueline looks forward to being the Regional Director for Art in Conversation in  NYC/ NJ/DC, Florida and Hawaii

Contact Jacqueline at jquirk@artinconversation.co.uk

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Elena Piccione has always being connected to the lyrical universe of arts. She took Dostoyevsky’s words: 'Beauty will save the world'  literary and made it her mission!

She founded the AMI - Finale Ligure to materialise her passion as an artist and believes that art, as a universal language, has the power to unite the world, to make it better.  

Elena is our Ambassador in Italy for Art in Conversation.

Contact Elena at elena@artinconversation.co.uk

Elena Piccione
Ambassador for Art in Conversation in Italy
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Mari Calai
Ambassador for Art in Conversation in Seoul, South Korea & and Washington D.C., USA

Mari Calai has been an artist for the past 10 years. Born and raised in Romania, and for the latter part of her life abroad, from Italy to the United States and South Korea, she has been traveling the world exploring different cultures and that is what inspires her the most. Cultural diplomacy is something that Mari is strongly passionate about, and considers art one of the main bridges between cultures. 

Mari is an international award-winning photographer and an avid painter with her most recent exhibitions in Seoul, South Korea and Washington D.C. areas. As a virtual artist, her work is sublime and marked by a nostalgic realism.

Mari is our Ambassador in Seoul, South Korea & and Washington D.C. for Art in Conversation. 

Contact Mari at maricalai@artinconversation.co.uk

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