Waltham Forest Echo | Shining a light

Artist Rubbena Aurangzeb-Tariq reveals all about her newest movie venture, which sees her and deaf Waltham Forest residents spotlight their group

Rubbena signing with British Sign Language (Credit: Ollie Harrop)

Deaf residents from Waltham Forest have helped to create a new brief movie and art work concerning the East London deaf group. 

Members of the Waltham Forest Deaf group bought along with deaf folks from different East London boroughs in a sequence of on-line Zoom conferences to speak about their lives, deaf tradition, British Sign Language (BSL) and the historical past of deaf folks within the space. 

The conversations have been filmed and excerpts have been then edited collectively alongside ‘reside motion’ work to create a movie known as Lightwave. The movie is in BSL with subtitles. 

Lightwave is a collaboration between Professor Bencie Woll of University College London’s Deaf Language and Cognition (DCAL) division, artist Rubbena Aurangzeb-Tariq and the East London deaf group. 

169444832 3813427292086018 9184253808736078387 nPoster for Lightwave, Rubbena’s new movie

It’s being proven as a part of Trellis Festival, a public artwork pageant and information trade programme between researchers and artists within the East End. The pageant is a part of the broader imaginative and prescient for UCL Public Art and Community Engagement, to create alternatives for collaboration between artists, researchers and communities primarily based across the future UCL East Campus. 

Former Waltham Forest resident Rubbena Aurangzeb-Tariq is the venture’s lead artist and is herself a deaf BSL person. 

She advised the Echo: “Lockdown has been laborious for everybody, however particularly so for the deaf group who’ve historically been shut knit and relied on face-to-face contact to help one another. 

“Often native folks in Waltham Forest and different components of East London aren’t conscious of the long-established deaf group within the space. 

“Creating Lightwave was a nice alternative for deaf folks to fulfill up, speak rejoice and take pleasure of their historical past language and tradition. It presents everybody a fascinating glimpse into the group’s life and reveals its nice variety. 

“The movie accommodates a lot of humour but in addition offers with severe points going through the group together with the inequalities and boundaries deaf folks face of their on a regular basis lives and the latest wrestle to get entry to get details about the Covid-19 pandemic. 

“The venture additionally provides linguistic researchers at DCAL a treasure trove of BSL for additional analysis and evaluation.” 

To watch Lightwave and study extra concerning the Trellis Festival, go to UCL’s web site

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