Artistic Merit | Producer
Artistic Merit
Reviews
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19.01.2022 Workshops start Wednesday. A chance to make some art together.
18.01.2022 This is what we’ve been working on with the fantastic lead artist duo Dan Goronszy and Luke King.
15.01.2022 Deaf people often need to work harder Deafness is not visible, and some of the difficulties Deaf people face can be invisible to hearing people, who can easily ...take 'hearing privilege' for granted. Here, I wanted to raise some awareness about the extra work that Deaf people often do, in order to achieve the same outcomes as hearing people. A simple example that many Deaf people will relate to is my university maths class. I couldn't understand the lecturer, who spoke into the whiteboard as he wrote his notes. At that time, I couldn't sign well, so an interpreter was not an option for me. Instead, I dutifully copied out all the notes on the blackboard, and took them home to try and figure it out. Figuring it out meant hassling my father, who kindly gave me about an hour a day of his time to go over the material, and studying the text book at length. For me to pass that course, I think I put in twice the amount of time that any other student put in, and even then I only just scraped through. University level maths was hard! Another example is when I wanted to become a professional circus performer. Joining a professional circus company was not an option for me at that time. There simply wasn't money available for interpreters, and the companies who were interested in me were not in a position to change their entire working environment in order to accomodate my needs. Fair enough. I decided to go solo. I created my own acts to perform freelance, and approached the agencies that my circus friends got lots of work through. However, I did not receive a single booking. I think they did not feel comfortable putting my material in front of their clients, as they weren't confident that I, as a Deaf person, would handle the requirements in a professional manner. With yet another dead end for my desired career, I decided to make it happen myself. I invested my personal savings to pay someone to ring festivals and tell them about my acts. I then posted them the same promotional material that my agents had. Finally! I got bookings! This was before email was popular. I had to spend a lot of time and money training up my admin assistants to present me in exactly the way I wanted to be presented. But the hard work and cost paid off, and for the next ten years I earned a living as a freelance circus performer. For those of you with hearing privilege, keep in mind the 'head wind' that Deaf people often need to deal with in order to get ordinary, everyday tasks done, and in order to get and hold down a job. Perhaps you'd consider hiring a Deaf person, (most Deaf people work very hard - we are used to that in order to survive), or extend an opportunity that just makes life that bit easier. It happened for me when Arts Centre Melbourne hired me to tell stories as part of a project they were running, and, without me needing to ask, they also hired my interpreter. They had to pay double, to get my stories, compared to what they paid their other storytellers. I like to think it was worth it for them. But maybe, my stories had to be twice as good.... If you'd like to do your bit to help raise awareness, feel free to share this post. Thanks! Image: A collage artwork of a girl with black hair cut in a bob, standing on the right. She has big, wide blue eyes and has a little blush on her cheeks. Her smoky make up is smeared under her eyes and her lips are tinted dark red. She wears a long sleeved pink dress with a white collar. The background is like a sweets wrapper with greenish blue and gold vertical stripes. It has brown paper in the middle with text that says, 'Deaf people often need to work as much harder to achieve the sameoutcome.' Grey text beneath this says, www.asphyxia.com.au'.
14.01.2022 Time to get your creative and expressive muscles working! Get involved in workshops in February and start your 2021 just right.
