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The Making of:

The Making of: "Il Segno Della Memoria"

On the left: Miriam Grottanelli (spoken English); on the right: the interpreter, signing International Sign.
With closed captions in English.
Below: the transcript of the interview.

ilsegno

isla.jpg

Can you please introduce yourself and your team?

My name is Miriam Grottanelli and I'm the director of the Siena School.

The people who worked with me on the exhibition part of the Deaf Museum project were Pia the interpreter, Filippo and Nikola the performers. Gabrielle the video maker, Irene the photographer, and then three girls Sylvia, Veronica and Cleo who helped us with the administration, so quite a lot of people really. 

For the Deaf Museums project, you made the exhibition: "Segno Della Memoria" Can you tell us about the exhibition? What did people see, and where?

 The name of the exhibition was Segno Della Memoria, which basically means the mark of memory.

People arrived at a location called Pendola Institute, which is the former residential School for the Deaf in Siena. There, we first gave them an overview of the whole project and then they were led by the performers through the spaces of the Institute to enjoy the various parts of the performance.

What was the story that you wanted to tell with this exhibition?  Why this story, in this location?

The history of residential schools for the deaf has mostly been told by hearing people. We wanted to make sure that for this event and for this video documentary we would highlight only the Deaf perspective. It could only be in this location because the Pendola Institute is indeed the former residential School for the Deaf in Siena.

Your exhibition consisted of a one time performance and a documentary. Why did you choose this format?  
Where can people see the documentary?

We chose to create a performance, because this allowed us to create two results. At the end, one was the one-time event at a specific time and in a specific location and secondly a video documentary accompanied by a very professional commentary that we hope will reach many many people in the very long term. Absolutely everywhere the documentary can be seen by accessing the project site which is  www.deafmuseums.eu or by accessing our institute's website ww.sienaschool.com.  

What was the response of Deaf and hearing people to your exhibition? 
How did you take their different needs and preferences into account?

The audience at the event was made up of both deaf and hearing people, I can truly say that both enjoyed the performance enormously for different reasons and with different responses. Some had very emotional responses to it, some were intrigued, challenged by the language, but everybody said that it was fascinating and Incredibly instructive and interesting. We had positioned deaf and hearing people that could help the audience in strategic places within the Institute. The performance led the audience into spaces that were all big enough to accommodate everybody in a semicircle so that everybody could watch them properly and enjoy the performance.

What will happen next? Are you planning more exhibitions like this? 
Will the performance be repeated - maybe in other locations? 

The performance was such a success that indeed we are planning to have more um more of the same though this particular one I doubt will be repeated because it was so site specific. But certainly we would be interested in asking more Deaf artists to create more artwork based in the memory of the Deaf community. The artwork could be a performance, it could be a piece of poetry, it could be something visual. 

What lessons did you learn in the process of making this exhibition? 

The most important lesson that we learned during the process was something that we probably already knew and that is that art really is a very very powerful and rich tool that can cross any kind of boundary, whether the boundary is a cultural one, a language one, an age one. Art is is the real means to accessing everybody.

What advice can you give people or organizations who want to do something similar? 

In terms of the advice that I can give to people that want to engage in something like this, I would say: plan ahead and plan more ahead than ahead, because you will need a lot of time. Make sure that you have a very efficient team of people where everyone knows what their task and their responsibility is, with constant communication that never takes anything for granted and is transparent. And make a very very detailed budget, because however detailed it will be, you will find that you will end up not having thought of something that will emerge at the last minute. 

Thank you and good luck!

Interview 20 December 2022, Siena

 

Quotes:

  • the past can hurt

    From: Walt Disney, The Lion King

  • "The most significant function of museums is as centres for cultural democracy, where children and adults learn through practical experience that we all have cultural rights. Having the opportunity to create, and to give to others, may be one of our greatest sources of fulfilment. Culture is everywhere and is created by everyone."
    Source: A manifesto for museum learning and engagement
  • "What has become clear is that museums don’t just function as custodians of the past anymore; instead, they have embraced their responsibility towards the communities of the present: a responsibility to represent them, to speak to them, and to be open to dialogue with them."
    Tim Deakin, August 2021
  • "Beyond works of art and objects, museums collect shared heritage, memories and living cultures as well as what we call intangible collectables."
    Source: We are Museums
  • “Stories of disability are largely absent from museum displays. Where they appear, they often reflect deeply entrenched, negative attitudes towards physical and mental difference. Research reveals that museums don’t simply reflect attitudes; they are active in shaping conversations about difference.
    Projects created with disabled people show that museums hold enormous potential to shape more progressive, accurate and respectful ways of understanding human diversity. Why wouldn’t we take up this opportunity? ”
    Richard Sandell, co-director, Research Centre for Museums and Galleries, University of Leicester
  • “If you do not know where you come from, then you don't know where you are, and if you don't know where you are, then you don't know where you're going. And if you don't know where you're going, you're probably going wrong.”
    Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight
  • "For many members of the Deaf community their shared history is both personal and social. Deaf people will have gone to the same school, in many cases boarding schools where most of their younger lives will have been spent together, and then met again at their Deaf clubs, Deaf social events, reunions and other more personal events.
    One of the first things a Deaf person will often ask on meeting, before asking your name, is what school or Deaf club you go to. Making this connection is an important part of any greeting, as it will then help an individual to understand what shared history or people in common you may have."
    from: The Cultural Model of Deafness
  • "It was only during the past decade that recognition of the importance of preserving Deaf history has emerged. In the main, Deaf heritage, culture and folklore has been passed down from generation to generation via the medium of sign language and fingerspelling. (..) It is also vital that the history of Deaf people is made available to future generations, especially Deaf schoolchildren as part of their history lessons."
    A. Murray Holmes,  in: Cruel Legacy, an introduction of Deaf people in history, by A.F. Dimmock, 1993
  • "As recently as the 1970s, deaf history did not exist. There were available sketches of various hearing men, primarily teachers, who were credited with bringing knowledge and enlightenment to generations of deaf children, but deaf adults were absent."

    In: Preface to: "Deaf History Unvailed, Interpretations from the New Scholarship". John Vickrey van Cleve, editor
    Publisher: Gallaudet University Press, 1993
  • "Deaf people have always had a sense of their history as it was being passed down in stories told by generations of students walking in the hallways of their residential schools and by others who congregated in their clubs, ran associations, attended religious services, and played in sporting events.
    With these activities, the deaf community exhibited hallmarks of agency — an effort to maintain their social, cultural, and political autonomy amid intense pressure to conform as hearing, speaking people."
    BRIAN H. GREENWALD AND JOSEPH J. MURRAY, in: Sign Language Studies, Volume 17, Number 1, Fall 2016
  • "Nina Simon has described true inclusion in a museum context as occurring when museums value the diversity in their audience, value those individuals’ potential and contributions, when they actively link those diverse people across differences, and when the organisation reaches out with generosity and curiosity at the core.
    On a practical level this sort of museum practice would see widespread inclusion of people with disabilities in the planning of museum exhibitions, on museum boards and steering committees, and working in curatorial roles."
    In: Corinne Ball: Expressing Ourselves, 2020
  • "The Deaf community is international. What binds Deaf people, despite their different national sign languages, is their shared visual communication, history, cultural activities, and the need for a Deaf “space” where people come together."

    from: The Cultural Model of Deafness
  • "Museums can increase our sense of wellbeing, help us feel proud of where we have come from, and inspire, challenge and stimulate us."
    Source: Museums Change Lives
  • "Museums can increase our sense of wellbeing, help us feel proud of where we have come from, and inspire, challenge and stimulate us."
    Source: https://www.museumsassociation.org/campaigns/museums-change-lives/

  • "The UN Declaration of Human Rights states that “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community”. This is based on the principle that citizens are not just consumers of cultural capital created by others; we have agency and the right to contribute through culture to the wider good of society."
    Source: A manifesto for museum learning and engagement
  • "Opening ourselves to the Deaf community, listening to and respecting them as co-creators and experts telling the stories they want told, makes our practice richer, and has ongoing positive effects for the community.
    These embryonic relationships hopefully encourage Deaf people to feel welcome in our space — it’s their space too.
    For both side, communities and museum professionals, while genuinely, openly and truly committing to working together can be time-consuming, it repays any investment many-fold."
    Corinne Ball: ‘Expressing ourselves’: creating a Deaf exhibition", 2020
  • "This (Deaf) Museum is not intended as a casual show, to be seen once and forgotten. Its pretensions are nobler; it has a humanitarian aim. By its solid and tangible evidences, making history memorable and attractive by illustration, it serves a double purpose: to dispel ignorance and prejudice regarding the deaf, and to raise the victims of this prejudice and ignorance to their true level in society."
    The British Deaf Monthly, Vol. VI (p.265) 1897. In: Deaf Museums and Archival Centres, 2006
  • "Access to and participation in culture is a basic human right. Everyone has a right to representation and agency in museums, and communities should have the power to decide how they engage."
    Source: A manifesto for museum learning and engagement
  • "And yet, even within a large and, in many ways, traditional organization such as this (Trøndelag Folk Museum, Norway), the museum's encounter with Deaf culture contributed to profound changes and a process, still underway, which challenges our own understanding of what a museum is today, our role in society and our obligations towards more diverse audiences than those we had previously engaged or even recognized."
    Hanna Mellemsether, in:  Re-presenting Disability: Activism and Agency in the Museum, 2013
  • "An important matter for any minority group is that written documents in public archives are often drawn up by the majority group and do not always reflect a minority as it sees itself. Thus, preserving sign language narration is of the utmost importance and a challenge to those working in the field of Deaf history."
    In: TIINA NAUKKARINEN, Finnish Museum of the Deaf: Presenting the Life of Carl Oscar Malm (1826–1863)
  • "The Finnish Museum of the Deaf) was founded by deaf people, and, thus, its task has been to strengthen their identity and historical communality.

    Most of our materials have a connection to the key experiences that generations of deaf people have shared. These are important in understanding the past and keeping the collective memory alive."
    In: TIINA NAUKKARINEN, Finnish Museum of the Deaf: Presenting the Life of Carl Oscar Malm (1826–1863)
  • “One story makes you weak. But as soon as we have one-hundred stories, you will be strong.”
    Chris Cleave in "Little Bee", 2008
  • "Inclusion is moving from “we tolerate your presence” to “we WANT you here with us”.
    Jillian Enright in The Social Model of Disability, 2021
  • "Deaf mute, deaf and dumb, hearing impaired – the choices are many and not without consequences. Words have many meanings, they convey attitudes and prejudices and may hurt, even when used in a well-intended context."
    Hanna Mellemsether, in:  Re-presenting Disability: Activism and Agency in the Museum, 2013
  • "Histories have for too long emphasized the controversies over communication methods and the accomplishments of hearing people in the education of deaf students, with inadequate attention paid to those deaf individuals who created communication bridges and distinguished themselves as change agents in their respective field of endeavour."
    from: Harry G. Lang, Bonny Meath-Lang: Deaf Persons in the Arts and Sciences, 1995
  • "After all, we are all of us explorers, and we all have much to bring to each other from our own
    journeyings."
    Ladd, P. (2003). Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood.
  • "Until the fall semester of 1986, the history department at Gallaudet University had never before offered a course in the history of deaf people.
    In the 122 years, to that point, since the founding of the university, which was specifically intended for the education of deaf peoples, no one had ever taught a course about this very group of people.
    In all of those years the history department had offered courses on a wide range of topics but never deaf history. "
    ENNIS, WILLIAM T., et al. “A Conversation: Looking Back on 25 Years of A Place of Their Own.” Sign Language Studies, vol. 17, no. 1, 2016, pp. 26–41.