Deaf Explorer CIC adopt the social model of disability, and challenge prevailing views in dominant culture. Three of our board of Directors are Deaf artists and two are creative practitioners who represent the exceptional abilities of neurodiverse people working in arts organisations. Our ethos is that Deaf artists are not just one homogeneous Deaf culture they always intersect with other kinds of cultural identity.
Deaf Explorer CIC are Rinkoo Barpaga Deaf Theatre maker, Photographer and Film maker, he is chair of the organisation and is champion for PoC who are Deaf. He has recently received awards from LUX, Unlimited, Camden Peoples Theatre and Offsite outdoor commission. Maral Mamaghanizadeh, M.A. is a jewellery maker and visual artist from Iran, recent awards include making an immersive artists film about becoming a refugee for Art Reach Journeys Festival International, and ACE DYCP. Deaf Dancer Billy Read has an award from Birmingham Dance Hub and Arts Council England to devise a Dystopian Dance Trilogy with International Deaf Dancers aimed at younger audiences, in May he received an award from Creative Black Country to make online street dance tutorials for young people during lockdown.
Alan McLean is a co-founder of Deaf Explorer CIC he is a disabled artist and pioneer in live art, ahead of his time he brought disability to a National Live Art Festival in 1990 and his video work published in LADA’s Access All Areas in 2012. Along with Rachael Veazey who initiated participatory theatre practise with Deaf young people in the West Midlands, and established a legacy of deaf people working in education, film and the arts. They work at the ‘coalface’ of consulting deaf artists, and applying for grants. Together, we increasingly witness a discriminatory cultural practice that is dominant within the arts and it is this practice, that we want to reveal in the art work we make as a collective group.
Individual artists featuring in Deaf Explorer's commission, 'Permission to Speak', are David Ellington, Leigh Blake, Maral Mamaghanizadeh, Matthew Gurney, Ishtiaq Hussain and Sahera Khan