Jenny Chamarette

Dr Jenny Chamarette is a writer, curator and researcher whose work uncovers how culture, ecology and embodied experience shape the worlds we inherit and create. A Cambridge-trained scholar and former Senior Lecturer in Film and Media, Jenny is known for bringing rigorous interdisciplinary research into conversation with lived experience, creative practice and care-based ways of living.

Jenny’s first trade non-fiction book, Q is for Garden, grew from years spent cultivating gardens and allotments. Published by Manchester University Press, the book traces the overlooked presence of queer and nonbinary life across the cultivated and natural worlds through memoir, cultural history and ecological reflection. Through a full seasonal cycle, it asks what gardens can teach us about coexistence, transformation and mutual flourishing.

Jenny’s research and writing have been internationally recognised and shortlisted for literary and creative awards. Alongside academic publications on moving image cultures, museums, archives and queer ecologies, their essays and creative nonfiction have appeared in publications including This Allotment (Elliott & Thompson), Nature Chronicles (Saraband) and Queerphoria (Verve). They write on contemporary art and collaborate with artists, galleries and cultural organisations across the UK and internationally, including the BFI and LUX. Across writing, curation and collaborative practice, their work explores how difficult histories can be carried differently through film, archives, ecology and creative forms of collective life.

Born in Bristol to a family with deep roots in Manchester and the North West, Jenny has lived in various parts of Europe and now lives and gardens in South East London. When not writing, they can usually be found swimming, meditating, practising yoga, tending plants, visiting archives, or thinking about how gardens might help us imagine more interconnected futures.