Skip to main content

Broken Brains With Jamila Rizvi and Rosie Waterland, hosted by Benjamin Law

4 May 2025

In the Drama Theatre

Talks and Ideas

Join Jamila and Rosie for a deeply personal conversation, scattered with humour and lived experiences, covering exactly what they wish they’d had at the height of their illnesses: comfort, solidarity and understanding. Hilarious and unflinchingly honest, this conversation is essential for anyone who has ever been ill or loved someone who was.

Jamila and Rosie don’t just share their stories – they crack themselves wide open, revealing the reality of living with illness.

Turia Pitt

Useful information:

Physical brain health and mental brain health, and how they coexist

At the age of 31 Jamila Rizvi was diagnosed with a rare brain tumour. When she shared her diagnosis with loved ones, good friend Rosie Waterland proposed the tumour eventually be named ‘Jam’s Jerky’ and kept on display in a jar. While this sensitive proposal was politely declined, there was a reason Jamila had turned to Rosie for support. Rosie knows what it’s like to live with a broken brain. After a childhood of abuse and neglect, she had been dealing with significant trauma symptoms for years. Jamila and Rosie soon discovered their broken brains had more in common than they could ever have imagined.

Join acclaimed authors and close friends Jamila Rizvi and Rosie Waterland as they tell Benjamin Law about their Broken Brains, the subject (and title) of their new co-written book.

Jamila and Rosie are available for signing following the event. 

Presented by Sydney Opera House

Plan your visit

You may also like

Megan Cope and Raven Chacon

20 May 2025

Quandamooka artist Megan Cope and Diné winning composer and artist Raven Chacon explore how First Nations cultural work can work in defiance of Indigenous erasure, reasserting indigenous knowledge and processes.

  • Talks and Ideas

Good Trouble with Nick Kyrgios: Live

12 Nov 2025

In a first-of-its-kind global tour, Nick Kyrgios brings his chart-topping podcast Good Trouble with Nick Kyrgios LIVE to the stage, presented by Hana Kuma.

  • Talks and Ideas

Reflections on David McDiarmid: Paul Yore and Sally Gray

26 May 2025

Free event, tickets essential. Join curator, historian, and executor of the David McDiarmid estate, Dr. Sally Gray, in conversation with artist Paul Yore, to celebrate the launch of McDiarmid’s Lighting of the Sails commission, Kiss of Light.

  • Talks and Ideas

Checking availability