About
Sherry Dobbin, FRSA, MA, BFA is a Cultural Broker and Placemaking Advisor based in London. Her company, SRD Culture Ltd., provides strategic guidance and delivery plans of cultural infrastructure and programming for urban development that bring together commercial, civic and philanthropic investment. She sources new opportunities between cultural organisations and commercial real estate and employs a methodology that combines placemaking principles, urban revitalisation objectives, and deep understanding of cultural production to achieve shared social and economic success. Sherry brings over 35 years of expertise (and its resulting network) in the creative industries across all artforms; inclusive of leading cultural organisations and curating for public realm, across five continents.
From 2017-2022, she served as Partner (Managing & Cultural Director) at Futurecity Ltd, the global placemaking and public art commissioning agency based in London, where she brokered cultural partnerships for Centre Pompidou, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Museum of London, Migration Museum for property development. Sherry was Director of Times Square Arts and Creative Director for Times Square Alliance (2012-2016) where she worked with over 94 cultural institutional partners, 153 artist projects and founded Midnight Moment, the world’s largest and longest running digital art exhibition across five blocks of electronic billboards.
Prior to that, she was Director of Robert Wilson’s experimental performance institution, The Watermill Center and the related Byrd Hoffman Watermill Foundation, where she advanced the programme through international and national institutional and academic partnerships. While also acting as Program Director for 80-150 artists-in-residence per year to generate new work in non-traditional locations, she brought her previous production experience in theatre, opera, television, animation and dance production.
She regularly participates in international thought-leadership for advancing culture-led development as keynote speaker, panellist and moderator across arts and property. (see published). As Chair of the Urban Art Forum UK for the Urban Land Institute-UK, she shared and designated strategic thinking and good practice for forward-thinking policy and delivery frameworks that linked arts and property sectors across innovation and social value impact measurement.
She holds a BFA (with honours) in Theater Studies from Boston University, an MA in Art History (with distinction) in cross-disciplinary practice from Birkbeck, University of London. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts London, nominated for her work in arts-led regeneration. She was previously an Associate Professor at NYU Wagner School where she taught graduate students on ‘Arts & The Artists in Urban Revitalisation.” She began her career performing commedia dell’arte in public plazas and festivals from the age of 15, beginning her career-long passion for quality and experimentation in the heart of cities.
Current non-executive roles
