Jay Bernard is an interdisciplinary artist from London whose work is rooted in archives and social history. In 2021, together with the collective One of My Kind (OOMK) and Serpentine Education, Bernard chose to interrogate how money functions in today’s climate. DOSH is a card game designed to help us talk about money and imagine the world differently.
“Some people find talking about money very difficult. This is because money has an impact on all aspects of our lives, such as the house we live in, the school we go to, whether we get to go on holiday and whether we have enough to eat. Often, we know this deep down and we feel how unfair things are, but as a society we’re not very good at speaking about it.” – Jay Bernard
There are two alternate decks of DOSH, each containing 52 hexagonal cards. The cards present different provocations to support young people to think critically and creatively about money and economics. Players are encouraged to use the cards to start a conversation, draw a response, write their thoughts, make a swap, create a pattern, listen to themselves and others, or invent their own way to play. DOSH can be played in a group, with a friend, or independently.
Commissioned as part of the Listening to the City programme by Serpentine Education, DOSH is guided by four research questions:
How can we encourage playful, fun and critically-reflective conversations about money?
How can young people be supported to develop a vocabulary around money and economics?
How can we begin to rewrite ingrained and inherited narratives around economics and equip ourselves with the tools to challenge widening economic disparity?
How can we use imagination to think about resource distribution in a different way?
A printed version of DOSH was available for free from the Serpentine Pavilion 2021, designed by Counterspace, throughout August and September.
A further 4000 packs of DOSH have been distributed to young people attending summer holiday youth provisions across the boroughs of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea.
Serpentine Education supported by Gilberto Pozzi. 2021 Activity Pack distribution supported by Westminster City Council, Kensington & Chelsea Council, Young K&C, The Young Westminster Foundation, and Change4Life Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea.
Artist Biography
Jay Bernard
Jay Bernard is an artist from London whose work is interdisciplinary, critical, queer and rooted in the archives. They were named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2020 and winner of the 2017 Ted Hughes Award for Surge: Side A, a cross-disciplinary exploration of the New Cross Fire in 1981. Jay’s short film Something Said has screened in the UK and internationally, including Aesthetica and Leeds International Film Festival (where it won best experimental and best queer short respectively), Sheffield DocFest and CinemAfrica. Recent work includes My Name is My Own, a physical performance piece in response to June Jordan, which premiered at Southbank Centre’s Poetry International. Jay is a programmer at BFI Flare and resident artist at Raven Row.
One of My Kind (OOMK)
OOMK is a collaborative publishing practice led by Rose Nordin, Sofia Niazi and Heiba Lamara. Working together since 2014, they make, publish and distribute books and printed works which arise from self-initiated projects. OOMK commissions new works by women artists and co-curate DIY Cultures, one of the UK’s largest annual independent publishing fairs. With a focus on self-publishing and education, OOMK founded and run a community Risograph printing press in East London, Rabbits Road Press. OOMK are currently based between Old Manor Park Library (Rabbits Road Press) and Somerset House Studios.
Listening to the City
The Listening to the City programme engages with a set of sonic landscapes from selected London neighbourhoods, paying attention to existing and lost spaces of gathering and belonging, with particular relevance to migrant communities across the city. Conceived as a summer programme from July – September 2021 developed by Serpentine Education, Civic Projects and 2021 Pavilion architect Sumayya Vally, the programme of sound commissions, workshops, education packs and listening sessions will offer ways of listening to the city. At a time when personal listening devices have become ubiquitous, shared spaces to listen are increasingly rare. If how we listen determines what we hear, this programme encourages us to unplug, slow down, and embrace modes of active listening, making connections between histories of struggle, community care and organising.
Curated by:
Alex Thorp, Curator, Education
Jemma Egan, Assistant Curator, Education
Edited by:
Alex Thorp, Curator, Education
Jemma Egan, Assistant Curator, Education
Ben Messih
Design by:
Rose Nordin
