Chris Sullivan — Founder & Creative Director

Artists for Gaza was born fast. Chris had the idea, the vision, and the contacts — and the first event came together in just three weeks. That urgency has never left us. What started as one man's response to an unbearable situation has grown into a collective with genuine momentum: a team, a community, a supergroup, and a movement.

Chris Sullivan is a painter, writer, DJ, club promoter, journalist, lecturer, and filmmaker — one of the most restless and genuinely multidisciplinary figures in British cultural life. He founded Soho's legendary Wag Club in 1982, a club that defined London's creative scene for a decade and brought together music, fashion, and subcultural politics in ways that still resonate. He is an Associate Lecturer at Central Saint Martins, specialising in subculture — a subject, as he puts it, he is rumoured to know something about.

A master at bringing people together, Sullivan has always blended creativity with activism — uniting the creative talents of London's diasporas for social change, and using his platform to raise awareness for critical causes. His commitment to merging arts and humanitarian effort runs through everything he does, from the Wag Club to the lecture theatre to the stage at Scala.

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As a journalist, he has worked at The Face, Boy's Own, and Loaded, served as GQ's style editor, and freelanced for The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, Esquire, and L'Uomo Vogue. He has written three books — including the international bestseller Punk (with Stephen Colegrave) and We Can Be Heroes (with Graham Smith) — and directed Gangs of Britain, a nine-part documentary series for Sky. He is also a founder and trustee of Portobello Radio, championing community voices and local creativity.

He founded Artists for Gaza in 2024, moved — as so many were — by the suffering of children in Gaza. His son Finbar shared that impulse completely. Since Finbar's death, Chris has spoken with characteristic directness about knife crime, racism, and the failures of government — refusing to allow his son's name to be weaponised by those seeking to fuel division:

"The hate should not be directed at minorities. It's the government and the Met Police — they're the ones to blame, not immigrants, not black kids. Fin, above all, was proud to be a Londoner, proud of this multiracial, wonderful place we are."

"I hope Finbar is going to be a clarion call for all of us who can see the wood from the trees. That's what I'm going to make it my job to do now."

Maria Larrain — Co-Founder & Operations Director

When Chris asked Maria to come on board, she brought everything with her. As the person who builds and runs the digital infrastructure, website, merchandise, and operations behind Artists for Gaza, she is the engine that turns Chris's vision into reality — and keeps it running between events.

Maria is a healthcare professional specialising in paediatrics and a PhD candidate in medical anthropology at UCL. Her commitment to this cause runs deeper than logistics. As a former child refugee from Chile, she knows first-hand the enduring scars of displacement and trauma. She was eight years old when she drew the Estadio Nacional for a Red Cross competition — the stadium where political prisoners were held and Victor Jara was murdered for his art. That early understanding of what happens when states turn on their own people has never left her.

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It is what brought her to this work. The anguish of children in Gaza is not abstract to Maria — it echoes histories she has lived and studied. Through Artists for Gaza she brings together her commitment to healthcare, her belief in the power of culture, and her unshakeable solidarity with the oppressed.

She is also a music lover, keen dancer, and WAG DJ — which means she is very much in the right place.

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