The installation will be on display at the museum from the 8th July until the 17th October.
The Wellcome Collection is set to showcase ‘Finger Talk’, the new artwork by Cathy Mager (in collaboration with deaf artists) designed to celebrate British Sign Language (BSL) as a living, evolving language, deeply tied to identity and community.
Inviting visitors to step out of a hearing-centred world and into a space shaped by deaf perspectives, ‘Finger Talk’ brings together archival films, contemporary performance, animation and sound.
At its centre is a a circular space where visitors are surrounded by a projection in which performers sign a simple story of loss, loneliness, discovery and kinship. Their movements are expressed through Visual Vernacular (VV) – a type of storytelling that combines sign language and mime. The animated lines in the backdrop are from audiograms donated by deaf people. Audiograms are visual representations of the clinical test for hearing, and the results have significant implications for a deaf person’s life.
This immersive and multi-sensory experience is heightened further by haptic vests will be available for visitors to wear, enabling them to feel the vibration of the soundscape as it resonates through the body and inviting audiences to reconsider how sound can be experienced.
The installation also reproduces illustrations from early finger spelling alphabets in booklets, dating from the 17th century onwards, that were drawn, printed and distributed by deaf people.
Meanwhile, are historic footage from the British Deaf Association shows early depictions of people using BSL while socialising at picnics and sporting events and a soundscape created by deaf and disabled musicians features a combination of natural sounds, vocals, percussion and wind instruments. It has been created with sensitivity for hearing aid wearers and people with tinnitus.
For further information visit: https://wellcomecollection.org/exhibitions/finger-talk-installation