Stephen Stapleton

Stephen Stapleton is a British-Norwegian artist and entrepreneur known for leading organisations and developing platforms for cultural production, education and diplomacy across international borders. In 2003, Stephen founded Edge of Arabia (EOA) as an independent platform for creative collaboration between the Middle East and the Western world, and in 2015, established CULTURUNNERS as EOA’s not-for-profit arm, dedicated exclusively to social impact. CULTURUNNERS launched Healing Arts in 2020 in collaboration with the World Health Organisation to support an art-world response to the pandemic. In 2023, Stephen co-founded the Jameel Arts & Health Lab to measurably improve health and wellbeing through the arts at a global scale. EOA now operates across multiple regions, applying its purpose-driven model to bring art and creativity from the edge of society to its centre.