An end of year message

As 2021 draws to a close, I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on the past year and to thank each and every one of our partners, artists and supporters.

It has been a challenging year as COVID continues to disrupt plans. We are not alone in this, and the Arts and Culture sector is really struggling. I want to thank all of you for being so adaptable, and for not giving up when events have been cancelled. One thing I have personally learned through this pandemic is the power of technology and the sheer resilience of the deaf community. I am genuinely comforted by the ‘can do’ attitude of the people I work with.

If you have been following Audiovisability’s journey since 2016, you will know it was borne out of a passion to connect deaf artists and mainstream arts organisations and to show the abundance of talent within the deaf community.  

As we’ve grown we’ve developed our networks and our reach has been wider than ever. The natural progression for us was Charity registration which we achieved in June. I doubted this would be possible and I have had incredible support from Rebecca Edwards, to whom I offer my gratitude. I have an outstanding board who represent all sectors of the community and a Chair of Trustees who is the perfect person to lead us into 2022 and our next stage of development. I cannot wait to see where we go next.

We will continue to share our news with you and I encourage you to check our website and social media channels for updates.

This year's highlight includes our Two Hearts project. I do not think it is an overstatement to say that this has fundamentally changed the competitive landscape for deaf athletes – we took on the Paralympic Committee and won! Laurentia Tan can now wear Subpac in her future competitions and finally is on an equal footing to her hearing peers. We took center stage, literally, at the CBSO centre with a livestream concert watched by 3,000 people. If you haven’t had a chance to see it, there is a highlight video here:

In addition, 10 talented deaf artists visited a number of schools nationally to deliver visual arts and drama workshops, providing valuable role-model opportunities for deaf children.  I had an incredible week at Braidwood School working with professional musicians and deaf artists to deliver music, art and movement workshops. The workshop pack created as part of this is available for other schools to use as best practice for music education of deaf children and my sincere hope is that this will have a positive impact on how deaf and hard of hearing children are educated in the future.

On the back of this, Dame Evelyn and I were invited to join a live panel discussion for Immersive – you can view it here.

We are very proud of our partnership and educational outreach work with Wells - acting as an agent for change within music education for deaf people. My hope is that we will see exponential growth in the world of deaf musicians as for too long the opinion that ‘music is not for deaf people’ is the only one heard.

None of our achievements would have been possible without the support of our partners and I would like to take a moment to thank them; Decibels Charity, Deaf Explorer, Subpac, CBSO and the Sobell Foundation. A special thank you to Arts Council England for their support and belief in the work we do. The number of individuals we have worked with is too long to list here – please know that you are valued and appreciated.

I am very excited for 2022 and I look forward to sharing our news with you all.

I wish you all a very merry Christmas.

Ruth.