The British Academy Summer Showcase
20-21 June 2025
Discover a world of ideas
The British Academy’s free festival of ideas returned in June. Through interactive exhibits and workshops, inspiring performances and screenings, and thought-provoking talks, our funded researchers shared their innovative social sciences and humanities research that is shaping the society we live in – and informing the one we want to create.
Their curiosity-driven projects have been funded by our various project grants and individual fellowships; and were joined in our vibrant programme by our world-renowned Fellows and wider experts for a relaxed Friday Late and Saturday’s family-friendly Summer Showcase.
#ForCuriousMinds
Friday 20 June Late, 17:00 - 20:00
Award-winning British-Turkish novelist Elif Shafak discussed her latest novel ‘There Are Rivers in the Sky’ with Ritula Shah, while Dr Joshua Fitzgerald explored acts of cultural imperialism that accompanied the Spanish-Catholic invasion of Mesoamerica.
Dr Kulraj Phullar and Dr Michelle Williams Gamaker discussed her film 'Thieves', which challenges the film industry’s structural racism during its so-called ‘Golden Age of Cinema’.
Saturday 21 June, 11:00 - 17:00
2024 British Academy Book Prize Winner Ross Perlin discussed the importance of linguistic diversity, while MC Rider Shafique performed a brand new poem written for the Summer Showcase about the legacy of Benjamin Zephaniah Hon FBA.
Exhibits across both days
Our exhibits went back to an ancient Roman laundry, through the Great Plague of 1665-6, across the fashion of 1800s ballrooms, around an iconic Birmingham bus route and into the soundscape and lights of Antarctica’s Aurora Australis.
They taught visitors to make their own comic, navigate gender inequality in sport, and sample the evocative tastes of UK-Chinese food. Our digital exhibits explored the clothing of Muslim men at Jummah (Friday prayers), as well as a VR reimagining of a baroque chapel.
UK Premiere - Fly So Far
18 Jun 2025 Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH London
This is the UK premiere of documentary Fly So Far, which follows Teodora and The Seventeen in their struggle to regain their freedom from prison in El Salvador. Due to the criminalisation of abortion, they were sentenced up to 30 years in prison for having an obstetric emergency. Fly So Far is a reflection on a system that punishes women, but also about the possibilities of empowerment and resistance both from freedom and from jail.
