Team
Yvannoé Kruger
Director
Yvannoé Kruger is a curator trained at the University of the Arts London at LCC and Central Saint Martins who likes to find bridges between different fields of art, passing through science, gastronomy and craft. After starting out in fiction and documentary filmmaking, he became involved with artists and joined Jean de Loisy's artistic programming team at the Palais de Tokyo from 2011 to 2015, where he organized a number of performances, festivals, concerts and installations. He regularly curates over thirty exhibitions (POUSH, Monnaie de Paris, 19M, Nuit Blanche, Art Paris, Pavillon Vendôme, Art Genève). Yvannoé Kruger is regularly invited to participate in conferences or juries (Beaux Art de Paris, La Sorbonne, Ministry of Culture, Penninghen, Sciences Po, SGP etc...). He is also the artistic director of Manifesto.
Anne Carpentier
Secretary General
Historian by training, Anne began her professional career at the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, where she assisted the General Delegate of the Friends of the Society in the daily management of the association and fundraising activities: event organization, travel arrangements, gala dinners, and more.
Starting in 2012, she furthered her knowledge in management, leadership, and human resources at the Air France International Vaccination Center, where she eventually became the Administrative Director. She then continued her career at the International Medical Center, contributing to its establishment in 2018.
It was during her move to London in 2019 that she rekindled her passion for culture and the arts by becoming the General Manager at ACAVA (Association for Cultural Advancement through Visual Arts), one of the largest providers of artist studios in the UK. Upon her return to France, it was only natural for her to continue working in the same sector, becoming the Secretary General of POUSH.
Inès Massonie
Exhibition and Public Relations Manager
Inès Massonie graduated from Paris Nanterre University with a Master’s degree in art history, specializing in contemporary art. She also has a Master’s degree in exhibition science and techniques from the University of Paris 1 - Panthéon-Sorbonne.
Inès completed an internship in mediation at La Terrasse Espace d’Art in Nanterre and a curatorial internship with Mélanie Bouteloup, working on the exhibition Felicità Goodbye Horses, presenting the artists who graduated with honors from the École de Beaux-Arts in Paris and Bourges.
Working for the curatorial collective Rencard Collective, she developed the Sans feu ni lieu exhibition at POUSH and the Michel Journiac gallery, presenting artists from the Fonds d’Art Contemporain - Paris Collection, the University of Paris 1 - Panthéon-Sorbonne and POUSH who explored the subject of domesticity. At POUSH, she is responsible for day-to-day relationships with the artists, operations at the venue and coordinating partnerships.
Simon Jung
Programming and Off-Site Exhibitions Manager
Simon Jung has a Bachelor’s degree in economics, a Master’s degree in organizational management from the University of Paris Dauphine and a Master’s degree in cultural management from HEC Paris. His love of creation and innovation led him to work at CNRS Innovation, the Palais de Tokyo, where he was responsible for studies, prospection and audience development, and Arenametrix, where he worked with more than fifty cultural institutions, including MUCEM and the Museum of Natural History. In addition, Simon is a keen photographer and co-founder of the AUY (Art Urbanism Youth) association; it aims to highlight urban issues, as seen by young artists from all over the world. The first edition, which he curated, Art Urbanism Youth India, was held in 2020. With his creative and managerial skills, Simon joined POUSH in 2022 as an assistant artistic director and has helped organize exhibitions including Les échos d'un temps lointain arrivent en sifflant sur le sable, Le paysan, le chercheur et le croyant and À revers at Le 19M.
Dominique Castro
Residences and commercial operations Manager
Dominique Castro holds a Master's degree in International Cultural and Artistic Projects from the University of Paris 8. She worked on the Micro-Folie project at the Alliance Française de Bogotá in Colombia, where she was responsible for the museum's digital development in order to promote the French cultural scene through digital platforms. Dominique joined POUSH in 2022 as the site's operations assistant. She is now responsible for the development and coordination of POUSH's international residency programme. At the same time, since 2023, Dominique has been assisting curator Gaël Charbau with exhibition projects exploring the relationship between art and science.
Jeanne de La Masselière
Operations Manager
Jeanne de La Masselière holds a Master's degree in contemporary art curating from the Royal College of Art in London, and a Bachelor's degree in management from ESCP Europe, where she worked in London, Madrid and Berlin. She also obtained a degree in Art History from the Sorbonne. During her studies, she co-curated an exhibition at Gasworks (London) focusing on the traumatic memory of the ocean. She also worked in cultural mediation at the Centre Pompidou's Audience Department, before assisting Fanny Lambert as curator of Galerie Gradiva (Paris), in particular on the exhibition Des formes et l'Histoire. Jeanne joined POUSH in 2023 as assistant artistic director. She is now responsible for relations with resident artists, project development and coordination of internal processes.
Executive Board — Founders
Hervé Digne
Co-founder and president of POUSH
An alumnus of Sciences Po Paris and the French National School of Administration (ENA), Hervé Digne has always worked in culture.
He began as a senior manager for Hachette magazines and then for Lagardère’s media activities. A former adviser to the French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, he played an active role in the roll-out of digital TV services and the launch of the France 24 network.
He then led various media projects for consulting groups (Arthur D Little, Kurt Salmon, Post’Advisors) and oversaw joint ventures in the cultural and creative industries as the chairman of Postmedia Finance, which he founded in 2003.
He has been involved in the film industry as a board member of EuropaCorp and chairman of Cofiloisirs, a film financing institution (2012-19), and has been a member of UGC’s Board of Directors since 2014. He served as the President of the Avignon Forum and also held the presidency of the Lambert Collection. As the honorary president of the Circle of the Odéon-Theatre of Europe, which he founded and presided over for ten years, a former administrator of FRAC Île-de-France, and a member of several artistic juries, Hervé also currently serves as the chairman of the board of the National School of Decorative Arts.
In 2015, he co-founded Manifesto with Laure Confavreux-Colliex, and in 2021, he founded ADLCA (Association for the Development of Artist Creation Spaces), of which he is the president, and which carries the POUSH project.
Hervé has been awarded the titles of Officer of the Order of Arts and of Merit, as well as Knight of the Legion of Honor.
Laure Confavreux Colliex
Co-founder and co-president of POUSH
After graduating with an MBA from France’s prestigious business school ESSEC and a Master’s degree in arts and media from the Schulich School of Business in Toronto, Laure organized a film and music festival and an exhibition for the St Petersburg Tercentenary in Paris in 2003 and worked for France’s national museum association (known as RMN) and the Metropolitan Museum in New York (2001).
She managed the European entity of the Lord Cultural Resources Group, an international leader in museum consulting and planning, for 10 years and became the Group’s Executive Vice President in 2011. She has contributed to a wide range of complex and multicultural projects, including the Cité du Vin in Bordeaux, the Musée du Quai Branly, the Louvre-Lens Museum, Hermès’ Conservatory of Creations, the Monnaie de Paris (Paris Mint) and the Musée des Civilisations in Réunion, and worked on the development of major international projects, including the Heydar Aliyev Center (Baku, Azerbaijan), the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Dharan, Saudi Arabia), the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum (Geneva, Switzerland), the Jeongok Prehistory Museum (South Korea), M Avenue (Marrakesh, Morocco) and the Olympic Museum (Lausanne, Switzerland). She developed Forward +50, the first “serious game” to raise awareness of climate issues for UNEP, presented at the Rio+20 Earth Summit.
Laure contributed to the development of the Magnum Photos endowment fund; she became a board member of this fund and Lab’Bel, the Bel Group’s endowment fund for contemporary art.
She is a board member of EDMUS (a foundation which works to fight multiple sclerosis) and takes an active role in SINGA, an international citizens’ movement that offers innovative solutions to societal integration.
After teaching cultural entrepreneurship at ESSEC, she regularly lectures at Paris-Dauphine, the Sorbonne and Science Po, where she is a professor in the Public Policy Master's program and the European Affairs Master's program.
In 2015, she co-founded Manifesto with Hervé Digne and is the company’s Executive Director. She works on all strategic projects in France and around the world. In 2021, they co-founded ADLCA (Association for the Development of Artists’ Creative Spaces), which she co-chairs. Laure has been awarded the title of Knight of the Order of Arts and of Letters.
Executive Board — Members
Paula Aisemberg
Director of artistic projects for the Emerige Group
Paula Aisemberg is the director of artistic projects for the Emerige Group. Previously, she was the director of La maison rouge, which she created with Antoine de Galbert and headed for fourteen years. She curated notable exhibitions, including Henry Darger and My Joburg in Paris and Dresden, My Buenos Aires at La maison rouge, Etranger résident, la collection Marin Karmitz at Muntref (Buenos Aires), and Ceija Stojka at the Museo Reina Sofia (Madrid). She is also the president of the Trampoline association, which supports the French art scene, a board member of the Crédac, the Jeu de Paume and the Cité Internationale des Arts, and a lecturer in the Master's degree in Exhibition Sciences and Techniques at Paris I.
Guillaume Désanges
President of the Palais de Tokyo
Guillaume Désanges (born in 1971) was appointed President of the Palais de Tokyo in February 2022. Based in Paris, he has been an art critic and independent curator for fifteen years. He is the director of Work Method, an independent production structure that develops international exhibition and conference projects. He was appointed artistic director of the Salon de Montrouge in 2021.
Between 2001 and 2007, he coordinated the artistic project of the Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers; from 2009 to 2011, he was a guest curator of the Centre d’art Le Plateau-Frac Île-de-France (Paris) for the Érudition Concrète cycle. He was part of the editorial board of Trouble Magazine, collaborated with publishers Exit Express and Exit Book magazines (Madrid), and taught at the Ecole nationale supérieure d’art de Paris-Cergy, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Lyon. He is also behind the project La Méthode Room, a residency program in Chicago.
He developed several projects for conferences (The Dark Side of the Form, A History of Performance in 20 Minutes, Signs and Wonders, Vox Artisti, Art: A History of Violence) and readings. From 2013 to 2023, he was the curator of La Verrière - Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, in Brussels; in 2021, he was appointed artistic director of the Salon de Montrouge, with Coline Davenne. Guillaume Désanges organized several exhibitions in France and abroad, including recently: Myriam Mihindou, ÉPIDERME, La Verrière, Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, Brussels, 2022; Tactics of Augmented Dreams, La Verrière, Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, Brussels, 2022; Lucy McKenzie, Buildings in Belgium, Buildings in Oil, La Verrière, Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, Brussels, 2022; Majd Abdel Hamid, A Stitch in Times, La Verrière, Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, Bruxelles, 2021; Dance and Ritual, Centre National de la Danse, Pantin, 2021; and mountaincutters, Signs of Primal Breath.
Stéphane Distinguin
Founder and CEO of Fabernovel
Stéphane Distinguin is a French entrepreneur in the field of digital, creative and cultural industries, a campaigner for European tech and the founder of Fabernovel. As an art and design collector, he is also the author of an essay on the economics and funding of culture and creation, published by Editions JC Lattès: Et si on vendait la Joconde ? (What if we sold the Joconde?).
Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel
Director of Lafayette Anticipations
Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel is the director of Lafayette Anticipations – Fondation Galerie Lafayettes, where she curated exhibitions by Marguerite Humeau & Jean-Marie Appriou and by Martin Margiela in 2021, and by Cyprien Gaillard in 2022. She is a member of the committee of experts of the Monde Nouveaux program. In 2022, she was the curator of the Riga International Biennial and the director of the feature-length documentary based on the
exhibition (2021). From 2011 to 2019, she was a curator for the Palais de Tokyo: her exhibitions included the carte blanche to Tomás Saraceno, ON AIR (2018-2019), the institution’s greatest public success, and to Tino Sehgal, the largest live art exhibition ever made (2016). She also presented exhibitions by Marguerite Humeau, FOXP2 (2016), Ed Atkins, Bastards (2014), Evian Disease by Helen Marten (2013), or Mo’swallow (2014) by David Douard, as well as the group show At the Edge of the Worlds (2015). She regularly collaborates with French and international institutions, publications and catalogues, and participates in numerous seminars and juries in France and abroad.
Eva Nguyen Binh
President of the Institut français, Ambassador for French Cultural Action Abroad
Born on 4 September 1970 in Poitiers and graduated from the IEP in Strasbourg in 1994. She is a career diplomat. At the Council of Ministers meeting on 2 June 2021, Eva Nguyen Binh was appointed Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of the Institut français and Ambassador for French Cultural Action Abroad. She took up her post at the Institut français on 1 July 2021. Her first term of office has been renewed. Eva Nguyen Binh, a senior foreign affairs adviser, has been ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the French Republic to the Kingdom of Cambodia since 7 June 2017. Previously, she was Counsellor for Cooperation and Cultural Action at the French Embassy in Vietnam and Director of the French Institute of Vietnam. During her career, she has worked in the directorates of International Cooperation and Development, Economic and Financial Affairs and European Cooperation, as well as in the Programmes and Network Department at the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs. She was also Asia and Latin America adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs (2007-2008), and political adviser in New Delhi (India) and Lisbon (Portugal). Ms Eva Nguyen Binh was in charge of international affairs in the Michelin Group's Public Affairs Department from 2010 to 2013. She is a Knight of the Legion of Honour.
Dimitri Roussel
Architect and founder of DREAM
After training as an architect at ENSA Saint-Etienne and Paris La Villette, he co-founded the firm laisné roussel in 2013 and created the firm DREAM in 2018. He sees architecture as a social and ecological commitment. Attached to the working-class neighborhoods where he grew up, he is committed to developing a generous and meticulous form of architecture, even when budgets are tight. Wood is his favorite material, the one that most inspires him: for him, it is one of the solutions for a more responsible, sustainable and healthy city.
Marie-Cécile Zinsou
French-Beninese entrepreneur and President of the Board of Directors of the French Academy in Rome - Villa Medici
In 2005, Marie-Cécile Zinsou created the Zinsou Foundation in Cotonou, dedicated to contemporary art and its influence; she is the president and artistic director of the Foundation. In 2013, she opened the Museum of Contemporary Art in Ouidah and joined the Global Museum Leader Colloquium of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Since 2015, Marie-Cécile Zinsou has been a member of the board of the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles, and, since 2019, of the board of the Institut des Cultures d'Islam (Institute of Islamic Cultures). She chairs the board of La Maison Maria Casarès, a cultural center dedicated to theater, located in Charente. At the suggestion of the French Minister of Culture in October 2021, the President of the French Republic appointed Marie-Cécile Zinsou President of the Board of Directors of the French Academy in Rome - Villa Medici for a three-year term. After being named Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters, she received the Praemium Imperiale – Grant for young artists – in 2014 in Japan, thanks to the action of the Zinsou Foundation.