What do we mean by an Intervention?
We see Interventions as a way of taking back space at this college, in order to bring us all closer to liberation.
We define an Intervention as an action taken in a public space to interrupt people’s daily lives and invite them to think about the world we live in and the oppression which occurs today.
These disruptions are often playful or artistic, designed to start conversations, build community, and celebrate the many cultures of Global Majority students at Bruford.
Interventions
Intervention 1:
Food & Conversation
This intervention brought people together for the first time in our campaign history. We believe that sharing food creates a sense of community and is a beautiful tool to facilitate meaningful conversation.
This intervention entailed many moving parts including cooks, set-up crew and people on the day to enact the intervention. Jamaican and South Indian food was served, prepared by Georgia-Leah and Néa who are two core campaign members. The free food and chai were passed out along with information about the history of the Rose Bruford campus.
“Free lunch!’ Was what brought us towards the table layed out in the sun, but we stayed to talk and learn about what we were eating, who had made it, and where it came from. ‘You’ve never had jerk chicken?’ I hadn’t, and now I have! The array of food from different cultures brought me to chat with students I hadn’t spoken to before, having frank conversations about culture, colonisation and nostalgia over home cooked meals in a come-and-go easy-going scenario. I remember this afternoon so fondly.”
“It was amazing. To bring people together. Food is culture and food is togetherness. The amount of students we were able to reach from this intervention, with the cultural power and sharing of food was honestly unbelievable to watch. We were able, I was able to witness conversations that needed to happen. If people can celebrate, taste and celebrate in our culture then equally they should be advocates for us!”
Intervention 2:
The Lamorbey House Takeover
As part of Symposium 2023 at Rose Bruford, this intervention invited over 25 Global Majority students to artistically reclaim physical space in an oppressive institution. Many of the artist’s names are documented here.
Alongside this celebration of the Global Majority community at the college, we also created a History Room explaining the colonial legacies of Lamorbey House. These histories were further explained in drag tours given by HRH Aphrodite the First.
We also installed new room signs throughout the house, renaming them after Global Majority alumni and fellows of the college.
This intervention lasted for one day and sparked conversations with students and senior staff members alike.
- Freddy muthui -- Néa Ishana ranganathan -- imz spiers -- zarshaa ismail -- akshita brahma -- frances calliste -- munashe danga -- kymani charles -- joseph robinson -- jessica wulandari walker -- georgia-leah simpson -- aliyaan asif -- nicole schretlen montes -- divya nebel -- alaska couprie -- marlie james -- ella vatvani -
“As someone who had their art on the walls for this intervention and their poetry played out loud, I felt very empowered as a student but more importantly as a person of colour. It was a celebration of our art and who we are. And the unity that was created through the history room and people colouring the true image of the world map with all of the places that different people are from. Renaming the rooms in Lamborby felt like a true takeover and we should keep doing this work until we have taken over Lamborby house.”
HRH Aphrodite the First
Intervention 3:
The Gaza Monologues
Ashtar Theatre, a Palestinian theatre company, put out a call for people to stage their play, the Gaza Monologues, on the 29th of November, International Day Of Solidarity With The Palestinian People. To answer this call, Built On Blood decided to host a day of action for Palestine on Rose Bruford campus.
We banged pots and pans, chanted ‘From the river to the sea!’, marched around the campus, and read the Gaza Monologues at our final rally site near the canteen. The whole protest was live-streamed via Instagram.
Intervention 4:
A Teach-Out For A Free Palestine
Our Teach-Out For A Free Palestine was brought together in response to the escalating wave of student encampments across the country and around the globe. As a small college, we knew we didn’t have the capacity for a full encampment. So we considered how to adapt to our material conditions at Rose Bruford.
In the last week of term, we held an encampment-inspired event which included placard and zine making, educational sessions on Queer solidarity with Palestine and global imperialism, a communal lunch, groundings from BoB members, and a panel featuring Dr. Phoebe Patey-Ferguson from Rose Bruford’s UCU, social media anti-racism educator Annabelle Woghiren, and People and Planet migrant justice organiser Sasha Haddad, in conversation with our Campaign Officer Néa Ishana Ranganathan.
On the Saturday after the Teach-Out we joined the National Student Bloc at the 15th Palestine Solidarity Campaign march in central London, joining students from encampments at SOAS, UCL, Goldsmiths, and many others.
“I really enjoyed the teachout for Palestine that Built on Blood assembled this year. I learned a lot from the assembled panel, and was grateful to feel a sense of solidarity and community with my fellow attendees, strengthened by the care and sensitivity the organizers brought to every aspect of the day.”
It was so important for us to hold this space right at the end of the year, to gather as a community in our grief and rage, to share food and theory, to discuss how we keep resisting the state and building solidarity for the Palestinian struggle. But it was at the march the next day that we saw the possibility of what Built On Blood could become - We have spent three academic years trying to politicise Rose Bruford campus. Now it’s time to take our place in the wider London movement.
Built On Blood Encampment: A Zine by Maya Seligman
A beautiful documentation of our Teach-Out, sketched live on the day. Images below!
Solidarity
Justice 4 Chris Kaba
On the 10th of September 2022, Built On Blood marched in solidarity with the family and friends of Chris Kaba, an unarmed Black man who was shot by the Metropolitan Police.
We witnessed people queuing to view the queen lying in state making shameful comments about those demonstrating with Black Lives Matter.
This was our first step out into showing solidarity with wider struggles off of our campus, and we are still holding the Kaba family in our thoughts as they continue to fight for justice.
Built On Blood Bloc
In 2024, we instituted our new Built On Blood Bloc. This was a group of us who communicated using WhatsApp to organise going to Palestine protests in London together, allowing us to demonstrate as a group for mutual safety and support. This was also designed to help enable other students who maybe were not used to attending protests to go with a group of more experienced demonstrators.
Palestine Vigils
Over the course of 2024 we held on-campus vigils for the people of Palestine, allowing our community to come together and hold space for our grief, rage, and solidarity. We tied ribbons in the colours of the Palestinian flag to trees on campus, and when this was banned by the college we gave them out as bracelets and simply gathered for groundings and shared silence. This process allowed us to hold the Palestinian resistance in our hearts in the lead up to Intervention 4: Teach Out For A Free Palestine.
Divest Borders Week Of Action
In 2024, we took part in the Divest Borders week of action to pressure Rose Bruford to commit to never investing in the Border Industry. Alongside activists at dozens of other universities across the UK, we put up 'subvertising' posters explaining Rose Bruford's refusal to sign our declaration at bus stops around Sidcup. We also launched a new open letter, and put up posters around campus asking students to sign our petition!
Collaborations
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Drag & Cab
Built On Blood has been proud to collaborate consistently with the Rose Bruford Drag and Cabaret Society, and the Dribs and Drags drag collective which emerged from the society. In 2022-2023 we co-published The Smeared Voice, a zine celebrating the creativity of students at Bruford. In our Intervention 2: The Lamorbey House Takeover, Lady Aphrodite gave drag tours of the house, outlining the history we had discovered during our process of research. The Drag and Cab Society have been an essential part of Bruford’s queer community, and we are looking forward to continuing to collaborate further in future.
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Divest Borders
Divest Borders is a national campaign under the auspices of People & Planet, and building on the Fossil Free campaign which successfully lead to Rose Bruford pledging to never invest in fossil fuels. Divest Borders Rose Bruford began as a separate campaign group, ran by the Student Union Environment and Ethics Officer, but was folded into the work of Built On Blood in 2023.
Divest Borders calls upon all universities and higher education institutions to pledge to divest from the racist violence of the border industry. As Rose Bruford has no investments, we are asking for Bruford to pledge to never invest in the border industry in the future.
In 2024 we took part in the Divest Borders National Week of Action, engaging in ‘subvertising’ where we put up posters calling on Rose Bruford to sign our pledge at bus stops around Sidcup. We have also invited speakers from Divest Borders to address our group, and to speak on a panel at our Teach-Out For A Free Palestine.
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DICE
The DICE (Diversity Inclusion Culture Equality) society is the successor to Rose Bruford’s former BAME (Black Asian Minority Ethnic) society. DICE represents the political organ for all Global Majority students in the Student Union. As of 2024, since Built On Blood’s founding the DICE Officer on the RBC SU has always been a member of BoB’s Core Team, which has enabled major collaborations.
DICE events staged in collaboration with BoB include celebrations of Black History Month, South Asian Heritage Month, Latin American Heritage Month, Carni and Re-Carni, workshops with The Pappy Show, and Intervention II: Lamorbey House Takeover. DICE was also one of the co-publishers of the Smeared Voice.
DICE remains the political wing of anti-racist struggle at Rose Bruford, staging community events with the support of the SU, while Built On Blood is able to act as its more militant flank in holding the school to account.
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UCU
Built On Blood will always stand in solidarity with militant unions in their struggles for worker’s democracy, better pay and conditions, and a just workplace for all. As a student movement, we know that the struggles of our teachers and the staff of our universities against the management are our struggles.
During the 2022 UCU strikes Built On Blood members showed up every day on the picket line at Rose Bruford to support our teachers and comrades. We joined the national UCU march in London as part of the Rose Bruford and Drama Schools bloc, and we have attended open meetings hosted by the Goldsmiths UCU as they resist their management. We will continue to advocate for anti-racist, anti-imperialist unions in the arts, at universities, and across the country!
Art & Performance
Below are a Collection of pieces which were either made by Built On Blood Team Members or in collaboraion with us in some capacity.
They are beautiful, inspiring, liberatory and vulnerable pieces of art that reflect and sit in parallel with our anti-colonial organising.
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Culture Shock by Akshita Brahma
Take a moment to wear my eyes, and see if you can piece together the chaotic puzzle of what it means to be.
Culture Shock: the feeling of disorientation experienced by someone when they are suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture, way of life, or set of attitudes.
I promise it’ll be messy.
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Letters I'll Never Send by Néa Ishana Ranganathan & Zarshaa Ismail
A story of the letters two brown sisters send each other while they’re grieving. In this performance dark comedy piece, Néa and Zarshaa share the inner workings of their friendship while they tackle their mutual experiences of loss, teen angst, bitchin’ aunties, drama and trauma through poetic exploration of imagined pasts and futures.
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Stop Looking At My Cake by Oz Dennett
Stop Looking at my Cake is a multimedia installation about my experience as a fat person trying to learn how to love myself, love my body and allow myself to be loved, through rediscovering my childhood love of baking. I explore many themes and experiences such as desirability politics, eating disorder recovery, healing from insecurity and fatphobia through many artistic mediums such as photography, video, sculpture, painting, and of course, cake!
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Naturally Mine by Kaiaa Shepnekhi-Boston
Smells of enamoring inscense and shea butter ooze off the perpetuating presence of my being.
My melanated crown carries the weight of the Kings and Queens who nourished our lands many years ago
Hair that protects a forest full of knowledge, that continues to grow.
A voice flourishes with the songs I chose to sing, full of my voice which I choose not to hide.
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The Godless War by Arif Silverman
A fictional nation’s sole survivor tells the story of the brutal holy war that led to its demise. Written in iambic pentameter and evoking the themes of Greek Myth through medieval South Asian aesthetics, this new solo play examines the mental, physical, and spiritual cost of war.
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we are on the brink of something by Jane Morris & Néa Ishana Ranganathan
there is a cycle of seven scores and if you do them often enough, the world changes shape.
a hiker dance-sculpts with clay, string, chalk and sticks. a woman in white is haunting the trees. slowly, cycle by cycle, a stone becomes a mountain.
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by Georgia-Leah Simpson
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Mistress Empire by Akshita Brahma
A character with which to experiment with blood, chai, audience interaction, promenade work, anger, hypersexualisation, barefeet, DIY lighting, bodies, riot and chanting.
In collaboration with Built On Blood for Drag & Cab Evening in 2023.