Jay Bernard is a writer and artist from London. Their work is interdisciplinary, critical, queer and rooted in the archive. Something Said has screened in the UK and internationally, including Aesthetica, Leeds International Film Festival, (where it won best experimental and best queer short respectively), Sheffield DocFest, and CinemaAfrica. Jay is a programmer at BFI Flare and resident artist at Raven Row, in Spitalfields. Their debut collection, Surge, is out with Chatto and Windus in June 2019
Something Said, 2017, 7’33”
In 1981, the New Cross Fire tragically claimed the lives of 13 young black people and was met with state, media and police indifference. Haunted by that history, and in the context of the recent rise of the far right, Something Said resurrects the spirit of Yvonne Ruddock, whose 16th birthday was being celebrated the night of the fire.