Amanda Coogan is an internationally recognised and critically acclaimed artist working across media; through live art, performance, photography and video. She is one of the most dynamic and exciting contemporary visual artist’s practicing in the arena of performance and has performed and exhibited her work extensively including: the Broad Museum, Michigan; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville, Florida; The Neimeyer Centre, Spain; The MAC, Belfast; Lismore Castle Arts, Waterford; HOME, Manchester; The Golden Thread, Belfast; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Contemporary Irish Art Centre LA, Los Angeles; The National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin; the Venice Biennale, Liverpool Biennial, The LAB, Dublin; Limerick City Gallery of Art; PS1, New York, The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, West Cork Arts Centre; Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris and the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin. Coogan studied painting at Limerick School of Art and Design, and holds a degree in Sculpture from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. She was a Masters student of artist Marina Abramovic at the Hochschule fur Bildende Kunst in Braunschweig, Germany. In 2013 she was awarded her PhD “Deconstructing and Reconstructing live Durational Performance in the Gallery” from the University of Ulster, Belfast. She is an occasional lecturer at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin; Limerick School of Art and Design; the Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dublin; Technical University Dublin and Crawford College of Art, Cork.

The Centre for Deaf Studies (CDS) is part of the School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences at Trinity College Dublin, and was established in 2001 following years of campaigning by the Irish Deaf Society and other organisations, and is the only university offering Deaf Studies related courses on the island of Ireland. The aims of the CDS are:

• To increase the number of qualified Irish Sign Language/ English interpreters. Before the Centre for Deaf Studies was established, there were very few qualified interpreters in Ireland. This course provides professional training for interpreters ensuring that Deaf people are actively involved in society.
• To set the highest standard of ISL teaching.
• To provide training in the area of Deaf Studies.

Further information on the Centre for Deaf Studies here.

The Dublin Theatre of the Deaf is the Deaf–led community based Theatre Company producing two plays annually in Irish Sign Language serving the Deaf community nationally. DTD was established over forty years ago and is a stalwart of the Deaf Community in Ireland. It is a voluntary, community-based theatre company consisting of 10 core members; 8 actors and 2 design and production members in addition several volunteers. The age range stretches from mid 20s to mid 50s with the gender balance equal between women and men. Importantly, all their company members are ISL users, that is they choose ISL as their preferred language and therefore identify as culturally Deaf.
DTD expand their work to speak more directly to mainstream society, bringing with them, not just a physical dexterity and beauty in performance but also a raw political zeal of a company that is bursting to show the beauty of their language; ISL, and the riches of their community. Their plays run in the Deaf Village Ireland with recent productions including ‘1916’, directed by Lianne Quigley and Mrs Orange’s Journey, directed by John Cradden, both original plays in ISL and developed with the company, in 2016. Many of our company members are keen historians and research and develop plays on and about Deaf history, these include The Deaf Ghost written by the DTD Company and directed by Ian Plant and Murder at the Hotel written and directed by Dominic McGreal. Our award winning production The Rejected Child, written by Josephine O’Leary in 1992 was revived for the third time in 2012 and directed by Ian Plant. And in 2011 Alvean Jones wrote and directed The Deaf Book: The story of an Irish Deaf Man in the 18th Century.

Alvean Jones – Dublin Theatre of the Deaf, Director. Alvean is very much involved in the Deaf Community, serving on a multitude of committees, and teaching adult and continuing education, but she is also a writer, and performer. One of the leading lights at the Dublin Theatre of the Deaf, Alvean has taken on roles of actor, director, researcher and writer, over her time with them. She is regularly seen on RTE as an onscreen ISL presenter. Alvean translated and performed the official ISL copy of the 1916 Proclamation for that year’s anniversary commemorations. She has worked with Amanda Coogan since performing her ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ at Limerick City Gallery of Art in 2005.

Lianne Quigley – Dublin Theatre of the Deaf, Artistic Director. Lianne is the chairperson of the Dublin Theatre of the Deaf and dreams of DTD productions playing to the mainstream theatre world. She is a Deaf activist and one of the leaders for the campaign for the legal recognition of her language, Irish Sign Language, which was achieved in 2017. Lianne is also chairperson of the Irish Deaf Society; the Deaf-led civil rights campaign and she was involved in the setting up of the Disabled Peoples Organisation (DPO) a coalition with several disability-lead representative organization in late 2019.

Image Credit: Amanda Coogan, The Ladder is always there (performance still), 2019, Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville. Courtesy of the artist.