SED Opportunity Digest – 21 May 2021

Welcome to our digest full of interesting events, opportunities and schemes that may help you meet collaborators, improve their career prospects or simply broaden your horizons.

Please let us know if you have any suggestions for next edition via sed-web@qmul.ac.uk

From QMUL, Partners & Friends

Peopling the Palace Festival 2021 is coming from 7-20 June 2021 and students get exclusive early access to booking free tickets ahead of the launch via the button below…


QUORUM: Hear for You: Digital Assistants, Smart Speakers and Listening work by Dr. Marie Thompson PhD Researcher The Open University – Thursday 27th of May 2021 – 7:30pm soft start, 8pm presentation.

Zoom event – Free admission – We welcome interest from the public, link on request via our Twitter account on Twitter account on @QuorumQMUL or our email address queenmaryquorum@hotmail.co.uk.


Performance, Possession & Automation – a collaborative research project led by Nick Ridout and Orlagh Woods, in collaboration with Dhanveer Singh Brar – invites you to two online conversations.

Possession & Modern Acting | Friday 4th June, 6-8pm (BST) | Online | Shonni EnelowJulia Jarcho and Nicholas Ridout 

Possession: an actor seems to have been taken over by someone else.

Automation: an actor is someone whose actions are not their own.

In this public conversation, Shonni Enelow, Julia Jarcho and Nicholas Ridout explore ideas about possession and automation in relation to 20th and 21st century experiences of acting, theatre and the movies. Do they hold clues to the roles that both possession and automation play in contemporary life, and to how we might think and feel about them.

Click here, to book your place and for further information.

I was born a loser | Friday 11 June, 6-8 pm (BST) | Online | Edward George and Dhanveer Singh Brar 

What occurs when “lose her” is recast as “loser”, and covered over once more to become “winner”? And why in each reversioning does “pride” persist, but never in the same guise? These are questions which arise from listening to the Jamaican essayist of the song form, Alton Ellis.

By losing ourselves in Alton Ellis’s losses and revisions, Edward George and Dhanveer Singh Brar believe it is possible to begin to open up an auditory dimension to the question of spirit in Jamaica, the Caribbean, the diaspora, and in turn, modernity itself, as it was being rendered towards the end of the twentieth century.

Click here, to book your place and for further information.

Performance, Possession & Automation is a research project exploring automation and possession as two ways of thinking about what happens to human subjects who act in ways that they do not themselves fully control. How can making and thinking about performance contribute to thinking about these ideas?

In partnership with Fierce Festival, performingborders and Transform Festival

This project is supported by:

Collaborations Fund of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), The Centre for Public Engagement, QMUL & Strategic Research Initiative, School of English and Drama, QMUL


Creative Workshop: Calling University Students! What do you think of your hometown? Why do you want to leave? Why do you want to stay?

Join Botch Job for an online creative workshop, focusing on exploring the question of what home means, and how identity can be shaped by the place you grew up in.  We want to hear about your love/hate relationships with your hometowns, why you have chosen to stay or leave and what this means for the places left behind. The workshop will be a mixture of group discussion and informal writing tasks based around these themes, and used as research in devising a new piece of theatre about hometowns. No tools or preparation will be required. 

Botch Job are an emerging company, formed in January 2019 by Jack Tricker and Tom Chamberlain as part of Camden People’s Theatre’s Starting Block artist development scheme. Botch Job have an interdisciplinary approach to theatre making, involving video and live art practices and create entertaining work engaging in wider social and political discussions. They make theatre driven by questions about the world that they have yet to answer.

If you’re interested in supporting Botch Job, then please register here https://forms.gle/H3vUTPVEJuw4XNCR8 . Attendees will receive a £10 Dominos Voucher or £10 Book token voucher.  Please respond by 23rd May at 5pm. 

Dates/Times:

  • Monday 24th May, 6pm-7pm 
  • Tuesday 25th May 6.30pm-7.30pm 
  • Wednesday 26th May 7pm-8pm

Outside QMUL

Creative Youth Worker Job at Spotlight “We are seeking amazing, creative, inspiring people to join our team at Spotlight. The role will support our young people to access and thrive within our creative programme and support our teams of expert facilitators and delivery partners. This is a perfect opportunity for freelance artists; people wanting to gain experience in the arts and youth work; anyone passionate about the arts looking for a rewarding and exciting experience! We are looking to expand our pool of agency staff so this is a flexible role that will be managed by Hays agency.”

To apply email a short cover letter (addressing shortlisting criteria) and CV to hello@wearespotlight.com by Sunday 23rd May

Download the JD

UK Asian Film Festival, 26 May to 5 June 2021

The UK Asian Film Festival 2021 brochure is now available – https://tinyurl.com/46pt2fav

Tickets and screening details can be found here: https://www.tonguesonfire.com/events#venue-screenings

Norfolk & Norwich Festival 2021: City of Literature A weekend of experiments, original commissions, and interactive experiences, and invite you to encounter these prophecies with us and each other.

The Rt Hon The Lord Mayor of the City of London and the Genesis Foundation invite you to join them for the fourth in the series of Cultural Conversations: Culture, Technology and Innovation’ taking place online at 5-6:30pm on 24 May 2021. The Cultural Conversations series is a sequence of focused debates around Arts and Culture in the City of London. This fourth Conversation, the first of our renewed 2021 season, will be a conversation between: Javaad Alipoor, Artistic Director, Javaad Alipoor Company; Daniel Birnbaum, Artistic Director, Acute Art; Sarah Ellis, Director Digital Development, Royal Shakespeare Company; Suhair Khan, Strategic Projects, Google; Rich Waterworth, General Manager UK & EU, TikTok.

Season for Ex-Change returns with free events addressing the climate crisis

Ahead of COP26 this November, Season for Change aims to showcase the leadership of the cultural sector on the biggest issue of our time, through 15 artistic commissions and an open programme calling on artists and arts organisations to host events, artworks and actions across the UK to declare their commitment to the climate crisis.

After a successful programme in 2020, Season for Ex-Change is back with an 8-week online programme of free talks, events and workshops every Thursday about artists, activism and the arts sector’s role in the climate movement. Find out what’s up next, with more to be announced shortly. 

Season for Change is led by Artsadmin and Julie’s Bicycle, supported by Arts Council England and Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

Find out more at seasonforchange.org.uk

Further sources of interesting events, opportunities and jobs are…

Apples & Snakes Artists Newsletter | Arts Admin E-Digest | ArtsJobs | Creative Access (Jobs) | JournoResources | Lectures.London | MediaBeans (media jobs) | QMUL Careers | Presspad | Tower Hamlets Arts | Write at Home (freelance writing opps)

Published by

All Things SED Editor

I am the Web and Marketing Administrator in the School of English and Drama. Amongst my various roles, I run the School's website (www.sed.qmul.ac.uk) and its Twitter feed (@QMULsed). I also manage the running of the School's Open Days and draft promotional materials.

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