Dr. Tim Curtis
Chief, Culture Unit, UNESCO Bangkok
Biography
Dr. Tim Curtis is the head of the Culture Unit in UNESCO Bangkok office, and is responsible for the coordination and implementation of UNESCO's Culture Programme in South East Asia. He has been working on culture issues in international contexts for the last fifteen years firstly as a cultural anthropologist and then for UNESCO.
He received his PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, where he wrote a thesis entitled ‘Talking about Place’ on the relationship between oral history and place amongst the Na’hai speakers of Malakula in the Republic of Vanuatu.
From March 2000 until December 2002, he worked as a consultant for UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage Section at UNESCO Headquarters, primarily on the design and implementation of intangible heritage projects as well as on the launching of the UNESCO Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2001.
In January 2003, he joined the Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (LINKS) Project in the UNESCO Science Sector, before moving to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in December 2004, where as programme specialist for Culture, he oversaw UNESCO culture sector programme in Tanzania, Madagascar, Comoros, Mauritius and Seychelles.
In June 2009, he moved to UNESCO Bangkok office. He has worked on numerous international programmes related to culture in the fields of heritage, cultural industries, cultural policies and culture and development.