Michael Cathcart: Jodee Mundy is the only person in her family who can hear. She is what’s known as a CODA, a child of Deaf adults. Jodee has transformed her memories of growing up in a Deaf family into one-woman production, called Personal, that is just about to open at the Sydney Opera House. Georgia Moodie has the story.

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Georgia Moodie: Whenever Jodee tells people about her Deaf family, they always, always, have questions for her. But in many ways, Jodee’s family was pretty normal. She grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney. There was her mum, her dad, her two older brothers, and the cat – it was just that Jodee was the only one who would hear. Yes, that’s right, even the cat was Deaf. Jodee’s first language wasn’t English. Her parents didn’t speak to her, they signed to her, in Auslan, Australian sign language.

Georgia: When you tell people that your family is Deaf, how do people react?

Jodee Mundy: (laughs) It's always fun. You know, I’ll just mention it casually and then everyone is like “Woah! Woah, woah, woah. WHAT?” And I've already moved on, “I’m like yeah everyone in my family's Deaf so blah, blah, blah, blah.” “What? Woah, woah, who?” And I went, “Oh my mum and my dad and my two brothers.” And they’re like “is it genetic?” And you’re like, ugh. And I hate that question because it's really private. Or, you know, “That must have been hard,” “Oh you're so special!” Or, “What's it like to be deaf?” It’s like, I don’t know! God, go put some bloody ear muffs on and knock yourself out! (laughs) It wasn't that I didn't like talking about it, it was more managing people's reactions and questions and just feeling like sometimes it cut the core of who I was.

Georgia: So for years, Jodee avoided bringing up the fact that she was the only one in her family who would hear. But all that changed a few years ago.

Jodee: In 2011, I went on an artist retreat and each artist had to talk about their work and so I prepared this work, and I talked about everything but my family. And then at the end one guy put his hand up and said “Oh, yeah. You know, it was good what you said but, you know, what's really interesting is your family, why aren’t you talking about your family in your work?” That really struck a nerve with me, because I was just done with people always asking me about my family and I said, “Why does it have to be about my family, I'm the artist, my family is not my work like, this is a very different thing”. But then of course I thought about it, and started to think well maybe he’s right. And then I just started drawing pictures of memories, Just like cartoon comic And after drawing 200 of them (laughs) over 3 or 4 years, I thought, wow, there’s some really interesting material here.

[sound of pages turning]

Jodee: They’re a little bit out of order. I think that one goes there. That's me as a little girl, struggling with, I guess with sound waves. And you can see this is all sketched in like a minute of just a memory, unpacking the memories. And I wrote like a story – “She had a mum, dad and two brothers who were deaf. They would sign at home” and that you know, there’s very childlike drawings of me and the family. And this one is just us signing, there’s no words. I’m not the best drawer, but I like how it's very childlike. Look it's all falling apart, blue tack and sticky tape. And then, talking about going to Deaf church… “Every Sunday morning, they’d go to Deaf church. After they'd finished signing the hymns, the little girl and her friends who could hear and sign like her, would chatter and giggle out loud up the back, through the entire service and none of the parents knew!” (laughs) Oh god, CODAs, we were so naughty, always yelling and screaming and no one had any idea!

Georgia: After making hundreds and hundreds of these drawings, Jodee realised she just had to make something from her memories of growing up as a CODA, a hearing child in a Deaf family.

Jodee: And I thought, oh first it will be a book for children, that was the plan, and then it was gonna be an animation. And then I got another residency and I started writing text, and I’m like “Oh maybe this is a show. Oh my god, this is a live performance where I can show the drawings, and the slides.” Then I started going through archives of super eight footage of my family, and I found these beautiful silent films, where mum and dad and us were all signing. And I thought I have to show this too! And then suddenly it was this (laughs), now I've got this multimedia work, that's performance, story, it's in sign, there's a virtual interpreter, that's me, where I'm interpreting myself, so you’ll see me talking but there's a video of me signing myself, and then I fight with my virtual interpreter! (laughs) And so it’s turned into this thing, this show, called Personal. And I called it Personal because ironically my personal life has been the subject of many people's interest, so it was never personal. I feel like I’m airing out like lots of laundry, but a lot of it's possibly dirty because of how we are as a society and that's where I want to shake it up. (laughs) So everyone can admire the mess that we're in, and look at how can we make things a bit better for Deaf people.

Georgia: Personal brings to life what it’s like for Jodee, moving between the mainstream, hearing world, and the Deaf community. And one of the things that Jodee and the rest of her artistic team have been talking about behind the scenes is inclusion, how to make sure that the work is accessible to everyone in the audience. Those conversations lead Jodee to an unexpected conclusion.

Jodee: At the start with my team I was like, everything has to be inclusive, we have to tell everyone everything, and they kept going why? And I’m like “Because we can't leave Deaf people out, if there's a sound, we have to put in brackets what the sound is like, that's just what we do. Or when I sign, everyone who hears has to know what I'm saying!” And then we've been on a journey, where they've gone, but this is your world, they have to struggle, and work it out. People won't really understand what inclusion is until they've been excluded. So we've realised that we don't want to make everything inclusive and accessible all the time. Because that only makes it look easy. The purpose of Personal is to reveal the strain of being inclusive, and that's kind of torn me apart to be honest. Because I've always been the one to fill in the gaps but this work is about letting some gaps be there.

[slow electronic music]

Georgia: So there will be some signing that people who don't know Auslan won’t understand, there might be some sound design that Deaf people won't hear. But CODAs in the audience, they’ll get the whole thing!

Jodee: Yeah, CODAs will get everything! (laughs)

[slow electronic music]

Georgia: Most productions don’t have an Auslan interpreter worked into the performance. What kind of accessed does the Deaf community have to the arts?

Jodee: Well it’s certainly improved over time. Maybe 20 years ago, there might have been a show in the fringe now and then or a random performance art thing. But now there's more mainstream, like musicals are being interpreted. Melbourne Fringe have become more inclusive, they've now got an inclusion and access coordinator, Nextwave festival, Midsumma Festival. I saw the other day Vivid Sydney are getting an Inclusion Access coordinator. So there's definitely an increase in the arts for access.

Georgia: Personal opens soon at the Sydney Opera House, and Jodee’s parents and lots of her family will be sitting in the audience

Jodee: I’m really nervous and excited for that night. Like, for me, just having my family there in the audience is all I care about, and that they can sit there in the Sydney Opera House, the most prestigious centre in in Australia, and have their story, and our, my story held in a beautiful space, with full respect and that it’s celebrated. That to me is the biggest gift I can give them, because they've given me a huge gift. I can't wait, I think will be very emotional that day.

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Georgia: What do you hope the audience takes away from this work as they're walking out of the theatre?

Jodee: I want them to see how it's been an asset for me to have my family as Deaf people. And we’re just a regular family, doing our thing, we sign at home like people would speak Greek at home, or French, or Vietnamese. And that it's not special if you sign or aren't you clever or, it's just that this is part of our Australian landscape.

[piano music]

Michael Cathcart: Jodee Mundy, speaking there with Georgia Moodie, who joins me now. Now George, since you made that story, you’ve seen the finished work. How did it brush up?

Georgia: It was fantastic, Michael. One of the things that I found most fascinating was that, as Jodee mentioned in that interview, there are sections where she’s signing and it’s not translated. And so, there would be a section of the audience that would just erupt into laughter and we had no idea what was going on. And there were also sections that were spoken and the deaf audience wouldn’t have been able to understand what was going on, and as a hearing person, most of the world is accessible to me, so it was really fascinating to be given such a vivid example of what it’s like to be excluded ­­— to miss out on the joke, to not understand what’s going on.

Michael: To be on the outside looking in.

Georgia: That’s right.

Michael: Now, you’ve had a wonderful experience here, because you’ve also made a longer story about Jodee for Earshot, so if you enjoyed the story you’ve just heard, you can podcast that story on Earshot. We’ll put a link on our website. And Jodee’s work Personal is at the Sydney Opera House, George, as part of UnWrapped Festival from the 9th to the 13th May and then it’s on tour.

Georgia: That’s right. It’s heading to regional Victoria, and also to Parramatta.

Michael: Georgia Moodie, thank you for coming into the studio.

Georgia: Always a pleasure, Michael.