The British Academy Ideas Festival - Friday Late

SHAPE Room | 17:45 – 18:30

Dr Luke Brunning, Dr Lucy McDonald and Dr Robert Simpson

Chair Alexandra Kilpatrick

Chaired by Feeld’s Head of UX Research, this panel explores how dating apps shape connection, community and ethical responsibility. It asks what it takes to design platforms that genuinely support wellbeing, agency and consent, while unpacking how online spaces can both enable and constrain community as digital cultures evolve.

SHAPE Room | 18:45 – 19:30

International human rights lawyer Philippe Sands Hon FBA and Gerry Simpson FBA host an intimate fireside conversation on law, justice and the power of writing. Drawing on their recent publications, they reflect on the role of law in shaping global justice and on how legal storytelling can help us understand responsibility, history and the international order.

SHAPE Room | 19.45-20.00

Join Nomakhwezi Becker as she performs her interdisciplinary poetry pieces shaped by memory, language, and diasporic belonging. Drawing on English shaped by isiZulu, isiXhosa, and German, her work moves across languages to explore identity, inheritance, and voice through a multilingual, performance‑led practice.

Radhakrishnan Room | 17:15 – 18:00

Dr Nikita Chiu

This workshop reframes space exploration through interdisciplinary research, asking how inclusive futures for parastronauts can be realised. Using group tasks drawn from real astronaut selection processes, participants put creativity, teamwork and resilience into practice while developing proposals for more diverse, inclusive and sustainable space activity.

British Academy Early Career Researcher

Radhakrishnan Room | 18:15 – 19:00

Dr Paul Anderson, Dr Judith Sijstermans and Dr Coree Brown Swan

From the financial crash to the pandemic to the cost-of-living crisis, political leaders often frame our world through a lens of crisis. But how do these narratives shape us as voters? Join this creative workshop, where collaging becomes a tool to express your own reality and challenge top-down narratives in a fresh, visual way.

British Academy / Leverhulme Small Research Grant

Radhakrishnan Room | 19:15 – 20:00

Dr Luke Brunning

What would your ideal dating app look like? Which features matter most, from prompts and profiles to safety tools or social spaces? Design your own app using guided materials that help you imagine, and reimagine, what dating could look like next.

British Academy / Leverhulme Small Research Grant

No. 11 Lobby I 17:00 – 20:00

Dr Clelia Clini

This drop‑in activity spotlights how British Sikh artists responded to the 2020-21 Indian farmers’ protest, one of the largest social movements in India since Independence. Through placard‑making and visual expression, explore how art becomes a tool for solidarity, protest and identity – and how the legacies of empire still shape political engagement in the UK today.

British Academy / Leverhulme Small Research Grant

No. 11 Lobby I 17:00 – 20:00

Dive in and explore BIRI’s global work to protect cultural heritage and spark international collaboration. With nine institutes spanning the Mediterranean, Black Sea and southern Europe, north and eastern Africa, Turkey, the Middle East, Iran and Central Asia, discover powerful connections, untold stories and extraordinary archives from across the world.

Lecture Room I 17:00 – 20:00

Professor William A. Callahan

How do societies decide who belongs? Moving from the Tang dynasty in China to today’s culture of social media and cosmetic surgery, this short film shows how something as small as a nose can shape ideas of difference, status and power.

British Academy Global Convening Programme, Knowledge Translation Grant

Lecture Room I 18:10 – 18:30

Join the filmmaker for an intimate Q&A about this unusual and fascinating short film.

Lecture Room I 17:00 – 20:00

Professor Sandra Sequeira

What happens when movement becomes survival? This short film looks at how conflict, climate shocks and insecurity are reshaping lives across Sub‑Saharan Africa – transforming communities, livelihoods and ideas of belonging. Explore what integration can look like in fragile contexts – and what these shifts mean for the continent’s future.

British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship

Waiting Room I 17:00 – 20:00

Dr Argenis Ramirez Gomez

What happens when technology is deliberately made to feel unsettling? Working with speculative design and imagination, create fictional “creepy” devices from the futures, using them as tools to reflect on what ethical, responsible and humane technology should – and shouldn’t – look like.

British Academy / Leverhulme Small Research Grant

Gallery I 17:00 – 20:00

Dr Ruth Woods

How are beliefs formed, challenged and changed through everyday encounters with different worldviews? Grounded in experiences in contemporary Britain, our researchers ask visitors to share the moments and relationships that have shaped their own belief journeys.

British Academy / Leverhulme Small Research Grant

Gallery I 17:00 – 20:00

Fatima Rezai

What is involved in the everyday, often invisible, labour of caring for ourselves and others? How do we adapt, reorganise routines and make decisions when plans are disrupted? Reflect on how care shapes daily life – and why recognising it matters for building more supportive social systems.

UK Young Academy

Library I 17:30 – 17:40

Professor Carolyn McGettigan asks if we can tell the difference between human and artificial speech? Explore how our brains process voices, what happens when technology blurs those boundaries, and why this matters for trust and communication in society today.

British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship

Library I 18:00 – 18:10

Dr Mary Brenda Herbert explores what it means to have a “happy childhood” and asks the question: who gets to define it? Examine how ideas of happiness are shaped by social policy, inequality and care – and why childhood experiences matter well into adulthood.

British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (celebrating 40 years of British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowships)

Library I 18:30 – 18:40

Professor Tom Shakespeare FBA challenges stereotypes around ageing, disability and sexuality in Britain today. Learn where policy and public narratives fall behind lived experience – and why those gaps matter for how people are seen, supported and included.

Fellow of the British Academy

Library I 19:00 – 19:10

Dr Xuan Li considers one of the trickiest aspects of communication: sarcasm. How do people learn to recognise and use it in a new language? Reveal what the development of sarcasm can tell us about language learning, social cues and cultural understanding.

British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (celebrating 40 years of British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowships)

Library I 19:30 – 19:40

Dr Phoebe Patey-Ferguson and Dr Joe Parslow are stuck in the toilet. Across cubicles, urinals, stalls and sinks, they are engaged in the labour of keeping things open in queer nightlife despite overwhelming pressure to close them down.