About this Event
As part of LGBTQ+ History Month 2026, UAL is collaborating with UK Black Pride to launch Representation 365.
These relaxed talks, spearheaded by UAL’s Jason Forrest (Student Partnership Manager) and EDI team as well as UK Black Pride Trustee Josie Peres, aim to drive meaningful discussion through accountability, in shaping cultural identity and representation.
For the first Talk, Lady Phyll, CEO of UK Black Pride, will be in conversation with Rob Berkeley, founder of BLKOUT UK. Further contributors will be announced ahead of the event.
Together, they will explore how Black queer and QTIPOC (queer, trans and intersex people of colour) communities have long been sites of innovation, developing new ways of organising, caring, surviving, and resisting exclusion in the absence of institutional support. From grassroots organising and mutual aid to community-led wellbeing practices, this conversation reframes science and innovation as forms of knowledge rooted in lived experience, relational intelligence, and collective imagination.
Rather than positioning innovation solely within laboratories or institutions, this sofa talk centres the radical, often unrecognised innovations forged within Black and QTIPOC queer life, asking what we can learn from these histories as we face renewed political hostility, cultural erasure, and systemic inequity.
What to expect
- An informal, in-conversation format (not a lecture or panel)
- Reflections on Black queer and QTIPOC organising as innovation and knowledge-making
- Discussion of care, wellbeing, and community-led futures
- Space for audience questions and collective reflection
About the organizing team
Jason Forrest is a Student Engagement Manager across Camberwell College of Arts, Chelsea College of Arts and Wimbledon College of Arts. He also a member of UAL’s Black History Month collective.
UAL’s EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) team is based in the People and Culture department. This is one event in their LGBTQ+ History Month programme.
Josie Peres is a trustee of UK Black Pride.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The London Art Bar, 300 High Holborn, London, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00
