Beautiful sight and sound in the cultural darkness

"The forum is an opportunity to meet arts professionals who are pushing boundaries and producing exciting new work. Each year we try to create space for international networking and to showcase new art to help increase awareness of the issues that disabled artists face in China and in the UK," says Rehana Mughal, director arts China of the British Council.

"The arts offer a unique form of expression and the artists featured in this year's forum have a wealth of experience to share. This year we are featuring performing arts, visual art, curating, music, and filmmaking from the UK and from China. The fact that we had a long list of work to choose from is testament to the growth of art made by deaf and disabled people."

Special mention is given to Cathy Mager's Sign Night, a poetic sign language conversation between a pair of frustrated lovers projected on the buildings in the center of Bristol, England. Two hearing-impaired actors share their dreams for the future in sign language between buildings in the night sky. Sign Night was inspired by real-life events performed by actors who were isolated on their balcony of their homes during the pandemic. The performance adopts British sign language, which conforms to the use habits of the British deaf as the performance language.