News and Opportunities

Announcing our second Trainee Artistic Director

Posted on: 29 Apr 2025

Extant are delighted to announced that Tam Gilbert has been appointed as the second Trainee Artistic Director (TAD2) and will start her role in April 2025. Our Artistic Director, Maria Oshodi states that “it is with great excitement that we welcome Tam as our second Trainee Artistic Director to Extant – I am sure she […]

Three people are standing in the space about to perform to an audience. The facilitator stands in between them explaining the task.

No Dramas Meets Some Unexpected Characters

Posted on: 17 Apr 2025

No Dramas Meets Some Unexpected Characters As part of my Projects Assistant internship at Extant I was able to attend 4 different No Dramas sessions. It was interesting getting to learn about the different facilitators’ styles and the importance of creating safe accessible spaces to deliver drama workshops in. My first trip was to The […]

Two Actors stand on a stage in blue lighting. To the left a black woman holding a folder. She wears glasses and is dressed in a smart red top and black trousers. To the right a white woman holding a folder and speaking in mid sentence. She wears glasses and is dressed in a smart green top and black trousers.

Digital Inclusion Award Winners

Posted on: 15 Apr 2025

Digital Inclusion Award Winners We are thrilled to announce that we are joint winners of the 2025 Digital Culture Awards Digital Inclusion category for our audio drama, Unseen, sharing the award with Zoo Co for their work on ‘Perfect Show for Rachel‘. Our Sound Designer, Ian Rattray, was longlisted for the Digital Ambassador award. Ian […]

Exterior of ZOO Southside, a large stone church-style building with pointed towers and arched windows. A sign reading 'ZOO SOUTHSIDE' in bold black letters on a white background hangs above the entrance.

Blazing a trail to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Posted on: 15 Apr 2025

Extant and ZOO announce Edinburgh Festival Fringe Partnership Extant and ZOO are working in partnership to make ZOO the first fully accessible venue for visually impaired audiences at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2025. All shows in ZOO’s programme will offer different forms of access for visually impaired audiences, including audio described performances. Headlining ZOO’s […]

A group of 12 people are sat round on chairs in a circle chatting in a darkly lit space. There’s a large square window to the right.

Recruiting: Regional Enhance and Access Workers

Posted on: 2 Apr 2025

Enhance Regional Recruitment We are recruiting for freelance visually impaired facilitators and access workers to work on our Paul Hamlyn funded Enhance programme 2025-26. We are particularly interested in freelancers based in these regions: North East, Liverpool, Leicester, Norwich and Edinburgh. Visually Impaired Facilitators We are recruiting visually impaired facilitators to deliver Enhance. Extant are […]

A drawing by Sally Booth of a zoom screen. There are 9 windows arranged in a grid of three-by-three, with a pencil or watercolour sketch of a face in each.

Guest Speakers: Extant Connect

Posted on: 18 Mar 2025

Fascinating Guest Speakers at Extant Connect Every month, Extant hosts an online session called Extant Connect, an informal opportunity for blind and visually impaired creative people to network, talk, learn and share ideas with one another. Sessions are often loosely focussed around a theme, and we regularly host guest speakers to speak on topics related […]

Two women are acting mid-scene, behind them three audience members are watching on intently.

The Halfway Point – National No Dramas

Posted on: 21 Feb 2025

A National Pilot of No Dramas In October 2024, we set out to play our part in building confidence and combating loneliness and isolation through our participatory project: No Dramas. These are a series of drama workshops, delivered by visually impaired drama facilitators, which generate community spirit, collaboration and allow visually impaired adults, with or […]

Magnus is a young white man, with short hair. He wears black glasses and a black shirt.

Welcome Magnus

Posted on: 16 Jan 2025

Extant’s new Projects Assistant Magnus Mackenzie joins the Extant team as Projects Assistant. Thanks to Lambeth’s ELEVATE programme, this is a 6 month internship, which supports NEET youth aged 16-24 in Lambeth to get into creative careers. Magnus is a creative, passionate, visually impaired, gay artist, performer and theatre maker, who is still developing their […]

Cologne 2-Barcelona 1

Posted on: 10 Jan 2025

Cologne 2-Barcelona 1 In Autumn 2024, Extant was invited to present at two international European events, Un-Label’s Creative Lab in ‘Aesthetics of Access in Practice’ Cologne, Germany, and Àfora-Focus ‘II International Congress of Spectators’, Barcelona, Spain. While both events were very different, (fruit analogies come to mind) having their own motivations and available resources, there were […]

Trainee Creative Producer

Posted on: 16 Dec 2024

Applications are now open for our Trainee Creative Producer role! About Extant Extant is the UK’s leading professional performing arts company that explores visual impairment to create unique and innovative artistic experiences, placing visually impaired people at the centre of all it does: from the productions we create, to the artists we support, to the audiences we […]

A square poster which has a light blue background. At the top is the title in bold, dark green text which reads 'Unseen’. Underneath it, in smaller dark green text, it reads ‘a gripping new audio drama by Extant’. Towards the bottom right, there’s additional dark green text reads ‘streaming from 4th March 2024’ and below this is a URL link to the website ‘www.extant.org.uk/unseen’. At the bottom of the poster is a row of 4 pitched rooftops in a line, the houses are painted blue, pink, yellow and green.

Unseen Audio Drama and Live Event – A Touring Case Study

Posted on: 28 Nov 2024

Unseen Audio Drama and Live Event – A Touring Case Study October 2023 – October 2024 Background In winter 2022/23 the Vision Foundation announced a new fund aimed at raising awareness around the impact of domestic abuse on the visually impaired (VI) community following the release of the Unseen Report. Our Artistic Director/CEO and […]

Unseen on Tour

Posted on: 27 Nov 2024

Unseen Tour Throughout October, team Extant has been ‘on the road’ with a unique touring event, based around our audio drama ‘Unseen’. It was a fantastic opportunity to re-visit some of the venues we’ve toured to previously and bring our groundbreaking work to both existing and new audiences. Back at the start of 2024, Extant […]