Stephen Iliffe: Why I created Deaf Mosaic to make our Deaf community more visible

For decades, the Deaf community has mostly slipped under the radar of the photography industry – galleries, publishers, agents, networks – with the result that we are virtually invisible.

For example, this year’s major photography event – Portrait of Britain 2020 – which is an impressive snapshot of Britain’s diverse population – didn’t feature a single Deaf face among its 200 selected portraits.

So, as a deaf photographer and writer, today, I’m launching Deaf Mosaic – an online exhibition that celebrates the Deaf community’s astonishingly diverse mosaic of class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion and different ways of life.

As I push open the swing doors to one London’s ‘deaf pub’ gatherings. I’m as likely to be pulled into sign language gossip by a friend of Lithuanian or Sri Lankan descent as I am by a cockney or a Scot. Joining the next circle of deafies, I might sign to a chief executive or bricklayer, a teacher or office cleaner.

At times, it seems as if Deaf people mix with each other across demographic boundaries more freely than hearing people do.

Why so? The answer is not hard to find: whether their deafness is genetic or otherwise, deaf babies – and children who become deaf later – appear randomly in families across all ethnic and socio-economic groups.

And, nine out of ten of us deafies grow up in hearing families with no experience of deafness, often with limited or no sign language abilities. So, the Deaf community fills a gap in our lives.

The result: a community vibrant enough to bring together people who would otherwise be unlikely to gather under one roof.

In recent decades, our 70,000-strong UK Deaf community has been expanded by migrants from the Commonwealth and European Union (EU) nations. War and famine have also bought Deaf refugees to our shores.

It is this incredible diversity which Deaf Mosaic celebrates.

The portraits in Deaf Mosaic range from female vicar to Muslim kickboxer, deaf-blind athlete to gypsy fairground traveller, charity leader to fashion model.

As a deaf child who was mainstreamed into hearing schools without any Deaf adult role models to relate to, this project is a dream come true. It was not until 1982 and halfway through my degree in photography at Leicester’s University De Montfort, that I even chanced across the Deaf community – thanks to BBC TV’s See Hear programme.

But this is just the start. Over the next year, Deaf Mosaic will continuously evolve by adding new portraits every month to further capture the deaf community’s rainbow-coloured mosaic.

You can view the exhibition from today onwards at www.deaf-mosaic.com