Sophie Woolley: Deaf culture, hearing culture and her creative journey

Ben Yeoh Chats

What is it like to go deaf and then gain back your hearing? On this episode, I speak to Sophie Woolley.

Sophie is a writer, performer and theatre maker. We have been friends for a while and I have learned a lot about Deaf culture and from her personal journey and one as a creative.

We have a meandering chat about her creative journey, how felt she had to write about her story of going deaf and then gaining hearing again via a cochlear implant. We recorded the podcast while Sophie is in Taiwan. She chats a little on her experience there and Taiwan’s COVID management.

This is a long conversation between friends discussing the complexities of Sophie’s experience. I was particularly intrigued by her thinking on what it might mean to be a cyborg and being augmented and being part of both Deaf culture and hearing culture. I am still thinking about her comment about captioning AI being her friend and how we can often simply criticise AI in a way we would not critique a human. (But also there’s no need to anthropomorphize AI either).

Transcript and Video links here. Image credit: Justin Munitz