We never underestimate the power of a well energised and engaged audience! They pump up our public with energy, they help settle the nerves of our guest artists (yes, even well established industry professionals are sometimes anxious before taking the stage), they moderate interviews and bring forward some of the questions from the audience.
Meet the wonderful hosts and moderators for The Art Department Eindhoven 2024:
Molly Heady-Carroll is an Irish-born 2D artist and animator based in the Netherlands who specialises in all things creatures. She has been involved in virtually all aspects of creative development, including: character design, animation, game design for video, card and board games, website and product packaging design and team hiring and management.
She captured our hearts during her hosting duties for In Motion Breda 2023. We fell in love with her energy and decided to entrust her with The Stage, a “modest” space accommodating roughly 1500 people, but hey, no pressure Molly!
Talking about The Stage, good thing to keep in mind: you can submit your questions for the artists presenting, via Discord. Molly will go through them and you stand a chance to have yours picked and asked live on stage during the Q&A with the guests.
Hosting of our second stage, otherwise known as The Show, will be handed to power duo Leon Tukker and Hannah Lau-Walker.
Leon Tukker is a freelance concept/environment/3D artist and animator living in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Specialized in architecture, science fiction and environment design, he has worked for clients such as Axis Animation, Wizards of the Coast, Paizo Publishing, Paramount Pictures and Keoken Interactive, among others. No stranger to Playgrounds, Leon has been involved in co-curating and moderating several editions of The Art Department.
We’re matching Leon’s massive TAD experience with the fresh perspective brought by Hannah Lau-Walker. With over ten years of experience within the commercial animation industry, Hannah has worked at indie studios based out of peoples living rooms, to huge production houses in central Soho. She is the founder of She Drew That – a multi-platform community striving to find new ways to develop women’s skills and talents and help in combating the gender inequality found within the animation industry.
Last, but not least, in charge of keeping things cozy, laid back but still informative on our The Living Room stage, is Juliana Erazo. A Next Talent alumni, so basically part of the Playgrounds family, Juliana Erazo is a Colombian visual artist. Her work focuses deeply on reflecting the female experience in various contexts and cultures, facing different struggles: from body normativity, sexuality and motherhood. She’s passionate about digital painting, graphic design, 2d motion graphics and cel animation. She has collaborated with creative agencies that develop work for: FIFA, Google, Abbot and Youtube, among many other fun projects.