I am the Founder and Director of Rory Studio and as a Deaf British Sign Language user, I strive to illuminate Deaf Culture within mainstream forums. I am a resident of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK and an artist who has been educated in the north east, graduating from Newcastle College in 2005, with a foundation degree in animation and illustration. I have worked collaboratively with Julia Donaldson’s ‘Gruffalo’ stories for her exhibition at The Seven Stories Children's Book Centre and illustrated British Sign Language fingerspelling images that were displayed alongside the English words on an information billboard. I also did a short screen presentation about ‘The Gruffalo’. Since then I have worked extensively as an ambassador for Deaf awareness.

In 2012, I was invited by the Paralympics to produce and direct Driving Inspiration, a live action short film that included representation from disabled children from across the UK.

From 2014 - 2016, I began to research and develop Gothrella, a theatre production made for D/deaf and hearing children and families, which involved working in collaboration, with a team of eight professional artists. I extended the dissemination of my research, to involve members of the Deaf community living in London, this was achieved by working in partnership with the Royal Association of Deaf People and Camden People's Theatre. In total, 19 Deaf people and 22 hearing people engaged in the activity which was supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

In 2015 I was appointed a Director of Surface Area Dance Theatre CIC, and have recently completed a national tour of Auricular performed at CCA: Glasgow, Berwick Visual Arts and Turner Contemporary.

In May 2017 I travelled to Tokyo, Japan to collaborate with Japan Deaf Theatre and begin a creative dialogue with company members to explore thematic concepts found in The Gingerbread Witch, which was supported by Arts Council England’s, Artist International Development Fund.

A strand of Rory’s Studio activity involves international exchange and production, In September (2017) I was invited by BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art to work in partnership with Nicole Vivien Watson as guest producers on a new community production titled Where Our Root Are Planted, a participatory project led by the internationally renowned deaf choreographer Antoine Hunter. Students and faculty from the Royal Conservatoire in Scotland took part in the activity, Claire Lamont, Head of BA Performance in BSL & English commented, “It has been wonderful to connect with the work that Nicole Vivien Watson and Paul Miller are leading. Since the BA Performance programme was launched in 2015 as the first dedicated conservatoire training in the UK for deaf performers we have appreciated this relationship and the opportunity it gives us to share knowledge and practice. It is so important for our students to connect with deaf artists and to find out about their pathways into the industry and how they approach the work they are developing. We are incredibly grateful to Nicole and Paul and look forward to an ongoing relationship”.

In March 2019, I co-produced ‘Hand in Hand’, a community engagement project working with 20 D/deaf and hearing participants in collaboration with renowned dance artist Chisato Minamimura. This was supported by Arts Council England, Dance City and The Japan Foundation.

In May 2019, I was awarded ‘Best Artistic Short Film’ by Deaffest and ‘Best Animation Short Film’ by Festival Clin d’Oeil, for my animation titled ‘The Gingerbread Witch’, based on the book.

During October 2019, the story of The Gingerbread Witch was transformed to an original theatre production. With support from Arts Council England and in collaboration with Northern Stage, the production took place on 25th & 26th October.

So far in 2020, Rory Studio has been fortunate to receive funding from Surface Area Dance Theatre, Arts Council England, and The National Lottery Community Fund, to create a YouTube channel called ‘The Magical Storytelling Time’. This channel delivers a number of inclusive children’s stories through lockdown.

As of June, I was also able to launch two new books now selling on Amazon: Pogo Flute the Clown (the third book in The Monster Chronicles Series) and Gothrella, a new book style that includes illustration and photography. Alongside that, I have been commissioned to create the animated short film of ‘The Pumpkin King’ (the second book in The Monster Chronicles Series), by Vici Wreford-Sinnott of Little Cog in collaboration with project Disconsortia. Follow the link here to see my progress so far: https://www.disconsortia.co.uk/paul-miller.html

Lastly, I have also been invited to Colombia’s International Deaf Arts Festival, to re-show the theatre production of The Gingerbread Witch, on a virtual online showing from 10^th to 18^th October 2020.