The Rose
Caroline Parker: The Rose
I first saw Caroline Parker performing as Caro Sparks at the DaDaAwards 09, telling filthy jokes from the perspective of a deaf woman (let's just say it touched upon noisy sex), delivering an unexpected treat with her comic signed performance of the Kate Bush classic, Wuthering Heights. It was in direct response to that performance that I approached Ruth Gould at DaDa to explore the potential for deaf and disabled video art in public space, although I couldn't have imagined that twelve months later we would be unveiling four new works as part of DaDaVisions.
Caroline Parker: The Rose
With additional support from Arts Council England, for her contribution Caroline chose to perform The Rose by Bette Midler, minus the infamous music bed. Famously satirised using perfunctory sign in the cult movie Napoleon Dynamite, Sparkle Media added augmented images paired with gesture and movement – marrying visual with non-verbal language to release a world otherwise hidden to hearing viewers.
All four films are now appearing on the BBC Big Screens in Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Rotherham, Derby, Cardiff, Swansea, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Bristol, Swindon, Dover, Waltham Forest (London), Greenwich Arsenal (London), Norwich, Middlesbrough, Edinburgh.