Claire Doherty is a creative director, writer and executive producer known for bold, affecting productions in arts and broadcast which have pushed the limits of genre and artform.
From 2002-2017, she founded and led Situations, one of the UK’s foremost arts producing companies where projects included the acclaimed, non-stop 552-hour-long ‘Sanctum’, Theaster Gates first UK public project, and Future Library, the 100-year literature project for the city of Oslo. During her time at Situations, Claire led an expedition to the High Arctic, commissioned 20 one-day-sculptures across five cities in New Zealand, marked the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta at Runnymede and wrote the New Rules of Public Art, as well as editing three volumes on contemporary art, place and public art.
Her work reflects a passion for hidden histories of place and unheard voices: whether that be conscientious objectors at sites of WWI incarceration or young Coventry writers in her pandemic adaptation of Deborah Pearson’s Future Show.
In recent years, Claire has moved into film and TV. From 2020-2022, she was Creative Director and Executive Producer of GALWAD, a multi-platform film project for National Theatre Wales and Sky Arts. GALWAD was a trilingual story told in real-time over seven days through live performance and across social media and on Sky Arts, broadcast live from Wales. The project was a 2023 SXSW Innovation Award nominee and a 2023 Rose d’Or Award nominee.
Claire has been advisor to the London 2012 Public Realm Committee, National Trust, English Heritage, Associate Creative Director for Coventry City of Culture 2021 and during the pandemic, led Culture Reset, a programme for 200 cultural producers for People Make It Work with David Micklem.
Claire was awarded an MBE for Services to the Arts in 2016 and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Breakthrough Award for outstanding cultural entrepreneurs in 2009. In 2023, she was made a BAFTA Connect member and was selected for the Future of Film Incubator.
She founded House Dog Productions in 2023.
