Join artist and writer Jay Bernard and researcher and cultural activist Nazmia Jamal for an evening of conversation and creative practice in this Continued Professional Development and Learning (CPDL) event for teachers.
Developed by artist and writer Jay Bernard in collaboration with researcher and cultural activist Nazmia Jamal, this CPDL evening invites LGBTQ+ teachers and allies to reflect on trans rights in school. Taking place alongside Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley: THE DELUSION, the session uses archival materials and themes from the exhibition to spark conversation, deepen understanding and imagine new possibilities.
Jay Bernard and Nazmia Jamal bring together their interdisciplinary, queer critically engaged practices rooted in film and the archive. In this workshop, they will focus on film and printed materials to explore the histories of trans rights. By engaging with the past, participants are encouraged to reflect on how these issues shape our present and imagining how we might collectively work towards more expansive and inclusive futures. The workshop holds space for collective reflection and creative possibility, asking how we can better sustain and support one another.
THE DELUSION combines satire and absurd humour with cooperative gaming and participatory theatre to explore the real-world impacts of societal division. Artist and game designer Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley invites visitors into a post-apocalyptic world shaped by a single catastrophic event – the Day of Division. In this imagined future, society has broken into closed, dogmatic factions, each clinging to its own version of truth, community, and survival. Conceived as a “live community play” and meeting space, the project aims to rehumanise debates and provide a space for players to pause, discuss and reconnect.
This session is open to LGBTQ+ teachers and allies working in primary, secondary or alternative provision settings, at any stage of their careers, who wish to support trans rights in schools.
Through the Teachers’ Study Evening we invite you to:
- Draw from archival materials to develop strategies for creating LGBTQ+ affirming classrooms.
- Reflect on ways to sustain ourselves and one another as we work towards more inclusive educational environments.
- Spend time in the exhibition THE DELUSION by Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley.
- Meet a community of educators and reflect on teaching practices together.
Refreshments will be provided by Friends of Ours.
This session is taking place at Serpentine North and the Magazine restaurant. There is step-free access to both buildings and an accessible toilet. You can find more information and a visual story here.
Childcare and travel bursaries are available. BSL interpreters are available on request. Please email [email protected] to book these options or discuss other access requirements.
Artist Biography
Jay Bernard (FRSL) is an interdisciplinary writer and artist from London whose work is rooted in sound, poetry and social history. Jay was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2020 and winner of the 2017 Ted Hughes Award for their first collection Surge. As well as acting as a film programmer at BFI Flare (2015-2024), recent work includes: Far from the Start, an audio installation at Studio Voltaire that re-imagines the Windrush; Blue Now, a live rendition of Derek Jarman’s film ‘Blue’; Joint, a poetic-play about the history of joint enterprise; Crystals of this Social Substance, a sound installation about young people, capitalism and money at the ‘21 Serpentine pavilion; Complicity, a pamphlet about colonial memory in the urban environment, based on the collection at the Tate; and The Last X Years, a digital and live sound piece produced by Art Angel. Jay was a DAAD literature fellow, a fellow at the Institute of Ideas and Imagination, Paris and is currently the Judith E Wilson poetry fellow at the University of Cambridge.
Nazmia Jamal is a researcher and cultural activist interested in the development of queer and Black feminisms in Britain. Her ongoing project ‘Lesbians Talk Issues Revisited’ has so far encompassed: the digitisation of the 1990s pamphlet series Lesbians Talk Issues – making them available to read online via Bishopsgate Institute; a Masters by Research on the pamphlets; and a monthly reading group. Nazmia is the Paul Mellon Centre’s New Narratives doctoral scholar 2025-2028. She is currently based at UCL where she is working on a history of Sheba Feminist Publishers. Previously, Nazmia was an English teacher, education manager at the Poetry Society and a programmer at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (now BFI Flare).
Curated by Jemma Egan and Alex Thorp
Produced by Jemma Egan and Isobel Peyton Jones
