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School Artist by Paula GarfieldPaula Garfield is 34 and is a freelance drama workshop leader, story-teller, actor and presenter. We talked to her about her life and her work, and about the film she made for Pulse. 'I grew up in a lovely hearing family with my twin deaf sister, who is a very talented photographer and now works with a media company,' Paula told VEE-TV. 'We both went to an oral school, where I found it very difficult to learn because all the teachers were unable to sign. It was such hard work to lipread teachers all day from 9am to 3.30pm. It was no wonder that when I left school, I had very low self-confidence and couldn't do academic jobs. So I ended up working in an old people's day centre for a year.' In the meantime Paula got involved with a deaf drama club called London Deaf Drama. Then a friend told her about the Theatre of the Deaf course at Bulmershe College, Reading University. 'I applied for that course and got a place,' says Paula. 'I haven't looked back since!' For the last 10 years Paula has worked with many different theatre companies: the Derby Playhouse, the Octagon Theatre in Bolton, the Solent People's Theatre in Southampton, the Palace Theatre in Watford, the Unicorn Theatre in London, the Trestle Theatre Company in St Albans and many more. When she heard about the Pulse film slot, she decided to send in her idea, and was chosen to make a film. She explains: 'The reason I wanted to make a film about a young boy going to oral deaf school where signing is not allowed was to make sure that no one forgets what the older generation had been though, and the fight for our rights. It is so important to remember this, as it is our part of deaf history. The young generation have no experience of what it is like to have signing banned in school. 'Also it is so important to keep a record of our history in writing or on video or in a play – something we can keep and look back at again and again. We just started to keep our history alive very recently, and we need to keep going, not forget the past. I noticed that more deaf people are starting to write about their own experience in books, but they're not making videos or writing plays. 'I want to leave the audience with questions in their head after seeing
my film – make them want to find out more about deaf lives. That is the
aim of my film.'
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