In January 2026, London-based writer and researcher D Mortimer facilitated a workshop- seminar around questions of disability, access and the university at ETHOS Lab. To materialise some of the conversations that came out of that workshop, we have printed a poster-zine that subverts the colonial / canonical connotations of the game of snakes and ladders, imagining it is something much more slithering and slippery.
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During the workshop, participants read aloud together, shared in discussion and gathered reflections and resources on navigating the institution from the position of a “problem body”. We asked in what ways collective, embodied, disabled, dyke, queer and transexual knowledges can/do infiltrate and disrupt the hegemonic structure of the university. It asked how our collective hunches and gut feelings might be their own material resources. How thinking with maladjustment, frailty and dis/order might prove edifying in a time of neo-liberal pedagogical invulnerability, rising populism, climate catastrophe and Al.
Working through the metaphor of snakes and ladders, and as an attempt to subvert the epistemic violence embedded in the game’s history, we visualised elements of our discussions in the form of a reimagined snakes and ladders board. Form as a way to creatively explore the notion of (in)access within the university. Each square contains an element of our conversation: an image, concept, or fragment of thought. In this version of the game, the symbols glitch, following a more associative and queer logic: snakes can be ladders, ladders become snakes, lines slither, blur and leak into one another, mirroring the various analogies and shapes that emerged during the workshop.
The zine also includes writing and poetry from D Mortimer themselves, including a 2000s Eurotrash-inspired poetic take on tsensuality as institutional dissent and the desire to re-write intimacy and closeness into the logic of knowledge-making, academia and research.
Heartfelt thanks to D Mortimer for sharing so generously, to all the participants for your presence and thoughtful contributions. Special thanks to junior researchers Sabine, gin, and Harriet for inspiring the seeds of this project, and to Reka Såra Mezei for all the
support in bringing it to life.
If you would like a copy of the zine, either digitally or in print, please email us or come by the lab during our open hours.