Introducing…
Hello, we are the People of the Eye collective. We are a group of visual artists and sign poets who are gathered together to explore in various ways, through various media the nature of the visual in sign language poetry.
Just to be clear, sign language poetry is poetry that is created and performed in the visual, gestural, spatial and performative medium of sign language (in our case British Sign Language).
Our purpose is ultimately to test whether visual art might complement deaf studies and sign linguistics in helping the academy better understand and perhaps ‘translate’ the nature of sign poetry.
We are so new that we are still forming, and we don’t yet have any artwork to share but we are hoping in the coming months to take it in turns to bring you images and insights from our explorations as they progress.
We are proud to boast some of the UK’s most esteemed sign poets in our collective. They are Donna Williams, Richard Carter, Paul Scott and John Wilson. Examples of their work can be seen at:- http://www.bris.ac.uk/education/research/sites/micsl/poem-repository/
So far the artists are:-
Trina Bohan-Tyrie: www.trinagallery.com (website launching soon)
Jackie Calderwood: www.jackiecalderwood.com
Howard Hardiman: www.howardhardiman.com
Eliza Kesuma: www.moodymonday.co.uk
Tamarin Norwood: www.tamarinnorwood.co.uk
Kyra Pollitt: www.kyrapollitt.com (website launching soon)
Bob Quinn: www.bobquinn.ie
The Rutterfords (Chris and Fiona): www.chrisrutterford.com
Melanie Sangwine: www.sangwine.co.uk
Mairi Taylor: www.mairitaylor.co.uk
Fliss Watts: www.watermellon.co.uk
Tom White: www.tomwhitesound.com
