Deaf Cultural Arts and Wellness

Deaf Cultural Arts and Wellness (DCAW) is coming to St. Paul! Join us on our mission!

Deaf Cultural Arts and Wellness (DCAW)'s mission is to provide access to creative arts and wellness resources for Deaf individuals and the Twin Cities Deaf community. Programs will integrate art and wellness practices, and provide meaningful artistic, lifestyle and wellness experiences through art. DCAW will offer events, lectures and workshops in dance, visual art, storytelling, theater, clay, writing, photography, video and music, for the primary benefit of Deaf artists and those interested in arts, with a particular focus on working with Deaf youth. DCAW is located in a safe, accessible and transit-friendly rented space in the Creative Enterprise Zone on University Avenue. This organization would be exclusively for the benefit of Deaf artists and the Deaf community, and exclusively staffed by local Deaf contractors, artists and instructors, as a way of providing equal access to the larger local arts community. We would also be an advocate for Deaf arts among hearing-led communities, and serve as a pathway for Deaf artists to work with hearing-led arts organizations. 

As a lifelong Deaf individual and artist who uses ASL as my first language, I have struggled to access both creative and wellness/mental health resources for myself and my peers in the Deaf community. Many Deaf artists have generally not felt welcome in the larger local arts community and have not had early access to art, because of a lack of knowledge in the hearing community, a lack of connection or relationships to these art communities, and a lack of resources for ASL interpretation. DCAW could create a way for Deaf individuals to access a robust artistic community, and help bridge the connection with the local arts community. I have been working toward this for my entire artistic career, and the opportunity to offer this space for creative programming feels like a culmination of many years of work.

A fiscally sponsored project of Springboard for the Arts. To give to Springboard: https://givemn.org/organization/Springboard-For-The-Arts