b. 1977, Newcastle, England

Michael Dean’s sculptures, performances, and installations explore the role of language as physical and nonphysical entity, mapping its transformation from spoken word to text, and back. Dean considers himself ‘as much an installation artist as I am a writer as I am a typographer as I am a dramatist as I am a philosopher’, and it is in his creative output that these divergent disciplines cohere. His sculpture acts as a three- dimensional manifestation of his written work, and installations are often accompanied by physical publications – one of which, in a 2011 exhibition at Herald St Gallery, visitors were invited to tear pages from.

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