Brent Biennial 25: AIR Ritual
When
17–24 October 2025
Where
University of Westminster Harrow Campus.
Watford Rd, Northwick Park Roundabout, Harrow HA1 3TP
Curated by Annie Jael Kwan
Each breath is a new possibility of life. Inhalation and exhalation as cycles of existence. Air is also the catalytic substance of ignition; it represents the power of utterance; declaration, song, whistles, chants, spells, of mobilising ideas and knowledge, people and animals. The Intangible, invisible force that creates changes in culture, education, legal systems, religion and ideologies.
AIR Ritual takes place from 17–24 October 2025, focusing on breath, dialogue, ideas and exchange. Join us for a programme of activities at University of Westminster and Northwick Park Hospital including exhibitions, an interdisciplinary ‘unconference’, a zine fair, artist talks and panel discussions, a mobile library, gaming, screenings, workshops and more.
This programme will take place across various spaces at University of Westminster and Northwick Park Hospital. For event and workshop bookings book via eventbrite here
Event programme: Friday 24 October
University of Westminster Harrow Campus
10:00am – 6:00pm | Print Gully zine fair
Print Gully is a frenetic zine fair where nothing goes as planned. Drawing inspiration from the chaos of shopping plazas, with dangling wires, faulty plumbing, backstreets stacked with newsprint, and makeshift printing processes.
A selection of works from Print Gully Zine Fair and Brent Biennial 2025 artists will be on display in the library.
11:00am – 12:30pm | Our Place, No Place – David Blandy gaming workshop
In this session, we will play Our Place, No Place, a game made in collaboration with Jo Lindsey Walton, we imagine the complexities of a better future together. Our Place, No Place is a tabletop role-playing game where we create a shared world, drawing a map and defining its landscapes, then step into the lives of characters who inhabit it. As we navigate a year in this imagined space, unexpected local events shape our stories and a community emerges through play. Our space, 200 years in the future, is no longer an abstract concept, but an imaginatively lived reality. The work insists that we will survive these traumas, but asks what will life then be like, in this different, sustainable, more collaborative world? No prior experience of gaming is necessary to play.
12.30pm – 1.30pm | Play Through This – Panel discussion about speculative worlding and emancipatory gaming with David Blandy and panellists
In this discussion we will consider speculative worlding and emancipatory gaming, considering the possibilities and limits of tabletop roleplay for solidarity and societal change. David and his fellow panelists Laurie O'Connel, Samuel Clarice Mui Shen Ern, and Eryk Sawicki will look at the history of gaming and resistance, covering, amongst others, the work of Avery Alder, Jay Dragon, Soul Muppet and Zedeck Siew.
Samuel Clarice Mui Shen Ern is a play designer and tech artist from Malaysia who create multimodal games and interactive installations about everyday moments and extraordinary worlds. Their work Horse Girl is a body horror, solo tabletop RPG journaling game, based on The Wretched by Chris Bissette, where you tell the story of a woman who consents to be mentally and surgically transformed into a horse.
Eryk Sawicki "I’m a pierogi-core Polish grafik dezajner creativ producer obsessed with paper and the old-school internet. Here’s what I’m up to: If you know what OSR TTRPGs are, you’re my kinda person. If you need advice about graphic design, printing, shipping or retail, get in touch. I run Peregrine Coast Press, a boutique tabletop RPG retailer, distributor, and fulfilment house. We make sad gay games. It’s our thing. I’m the operations manager at SoulMuppet."
Laurie O'Connel is a writer, journalist and political organiser. His RPG writing can be found at twelvepinspress.com. His political and cultural writing can be found at marxist.com and communist.red
Portrait: David Blandy (credit: Claire Barrett)
Our Shrines – David Blandy
David Blandy’s presentation incorporates ShrineShare, a project conceived and made with Malaysian artists and writers Sharon Chin and Zedeck Siew, and Our Place, No Place, a game made in collaboration with Jo Lindsey Walton where we imagine the complexities of a better future together.
The project helps us to consider speculative worlding and emancipatory gaming. Our Place, No Place is a tabletop role-playing game where draw a map and then step into the lives of characters who inhabit it. Our space, 200 years in the future, is no longer abstract, but an imaginatively lived reality. The game insists we will survive these traumas, but asks what will life then be like, in this more collaborative world?
Alongside this, Shrineshare asks “What do we hold sacred in times of crisis?” ShrineShare is a collaborative project that works with artists from the UK & Malaysia to share their visions of sacred shrines, be they ancient, personal, or imagined. The stamp-art folio project asked sixteen artists from Malaysia, Thailand, the UK, and the US to think about shrines: datuk kongs; sacred wells; flowers left at places of tragedy; and Geocities fansites. ShrineShare is supported through British Council’s Connections Through Culture grants programme. Creating new arts & cultural partnerships between East Asia & the UK.
ShrineShare: Amze Emmons, Arif Rafhan, Bethany Balan, Betti Stong, David Blandy, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Daniel Locke, Hardeep Pandhal, Jamie Oon Muxian, Jesse Joy, John Powell-Jones, Nadhir Nor, Petra Szemán, Ruangtup Kaeokamechun, Rupa Subramaniam & Shaifuddin Mamat @ Poodien
Image by Rupa Subramaniam
Curated by David Blandy, Sharon Chin & Zedeck Siew
Supported by British Council’sConnections Through Culture programme
2.30 – 5.30pm | Slime, Caste, and Cosmic Mutiny Panel with Print Gully’s Arsalan Isa and panellists (TBC). Launch of Brent Biennial 2025 Toolkit