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 11. Deaf Museums?

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Intro Chapter 11

Intro Chapter 11

This chapter gives an overview of the European Deaf Museums that we studied and consulted for the Deaf Museums project.

11.1 The Norwegian Museum of Deaf History and Culture (Norsk Døvemuseum)

11.1 The Norwegian Museum of Deaf History and Culture (Norsk Døvemuseum)

Address: 
Bispegata 9B
7012 Trondheim, NO

https://norsk-dovemuseum.no/en

 This is what it says on the Museum's website:

"The Norwegian Deaf Museum is a national museum for the culture and history of the deaf. It is housed in the former boarding school (1855-1991) for deaf pupils from Trøndelag and Northern Norway.

The Norwegian Museum of Deaf Culture and History is also a contemporary museum. We have documented the living culture deaf community and the current situation for the deaf, especially concerning the young deaf. The documentation has been done in Trondheim and Oslo, and everything has been filmed using sign language, texting, and audio. (..)

A separate part of the exhibition is dedicated to the stories of the deaf-blind. It consists of digital stories that can be seen on screens in the museum. In addition, we have made a number tactile elements which convey stories. You can read some of those stories in the collection of articles."

11.2 The Finnish Museum of the Deaf, Kuurojen Museo

11.2 The Finnish Museum of the Deaf, Kuurojen Museo

lighthouse

Address:
Väinö Linnan aukio 8
33210 Tampere, Finland

http://www.kuurojenmuseo.fi/?lang=en

From the Museum's website:
"The Finnish Museum of the Deaf preserves the cultural heritage of the Deaf in Finland. It is located in the Lighthouse, the headquarters of  the Finnish Association of the Deaf in Helsinki. The Museum operates as part of the Finnish Labour Museum Werstas in Tampere. 

History of the museum

The idea of collecting materials related to the past of the deaf in Finland arose as early as the early 20 century. John Sundberg was a travelling advocate of the Finnish Association of the Deaf, founded in 1905, and a journalist for the association's magazine Kuurojen Lehti. He had been told that museums depicting the history of deaf education existed in Paris and Leipzig, which inspired him to start planning for a similar museum in Finland.

The time of the foundation of the museum has been estimated on the basis of the donations given by Fritz and Maria Hirn to the museum in 1907. The Hirns were students of Carl Oscar Malm, the founder of deaf education in Finland, and they donated to the museum photographs and materials dating back to their school years. The museum collections increased gradually and the first exhibition, Carl Oscar Malm's museum room, was opened to the public for the first time on 12 February 1915.

Functions of the museum

Today, the Finnish Museum of the Deaf is part of the Finnish Labour Museum Werstas. The function of the museum is to collect research and exhibit the cultural heritage of deaf and sign language users in Finland.

The aim of the museum is to increase knowledge of the history and culture of deaf and sign language users and to strengthen their identity. In addition, the museum aims at communicating knowledge related to its speciality to the public at large. The varied collections of the museum serve both researchers and other customers.

The Finnish Museum of the Deaf co-operates with other museums and instances that carry out research on the deaf and sign language both in Finland and internationally. The museum does research and presents it through its exhibition activities and the materials it produces."

11.3 Musée d'Histoire et de Culture des Sourds

11.3 Musée d'Histoire et de Culture des Sourds

Musée d'Histoire et de Culture des Sourds

Address:
14 rue Edgar Guigot
71500 Louhans, France

https://www.musee-sourds-louhans.fr

musee

From the Museum's website:

"The Museum for the Deaf is the first in France. The foundation of the Museum required 12 years of research and  2 and a half years of work. This work was led by Armand Pelletier,  assisted by his wife Yvette, and Yves Delaporte . The official opening was March 9, 2013. 

220px Musée des sourdsArmand Pelletier and his wife Yvette at the Museum (source: Wikipedia).

The Museum is located in the outbuildings of the Hôtel-Dieu de Louhans. Its collection includes dozens of paintings, writings, diagrams and photographs retracing the history and heritage of the deaf.

The museum exhibits all aspects of the history and culture of the deaf:

    • The rich and complex history of each of the many schools for deaf children.
    • The role of deaf teachers in sign language education.
    • The social life of deaf children in institutions.
    • The epic of deaf sport, which has its own world games.
    • The history of associative life.
    • The history of sign language, regional dialects, lexical creation, humour in signs.

The plans for a Museum were born when Armand Pelletier received many original manuscripts written by Ferdinand Berthier. Among these manuscripts, for example, was an original petition from 1830 during the "revolution" against the oral education of students at the Institution des Jeunes Sourds de Saint Jacques in Paris. 

The Museum now presents a permanent exhibition dedicated to Ferdinand Berthier and temporary exhibitions on specific themes. It helps to preserve a trace of the history and the culture of the deaf, by exhibiting pieces of the deaf cultural, artistic and historical heritage. Thus, this culture will not disappear, which is important today for deaf children."

 

11.4 Deaf Museum and Archive, UK

11.4 Deaf Museum and Archive, UK

Address: 

Manchester Deaf Centre
Crawford House, Booth Street East 
Manchester M13 9GH, UK

http://www.bdhs.org.uk/deafmuseum/

"Set up in 2006, the Deaf Museum and Archive has grown into a credible national collection consisting of numerous artefacts, deaf artwork and paper archive collections of all kinds. It is the only museum in Britain that is specific to Deafness, Deaf communities and Deaf people.

 

The Research Library and the Deaf archives are now fully open and accessible but by prior appointments only. "

11.5 Deaf Heritage Centre, Ireland

11.5 Deaf Heritage Centre, Ireland

Photo of Deaf Village Ireland

Adress:
Ratoath Road,
Cabra Dublin 7
Republic of Ireland.

http://www.deafheritagecentre.com

From the Centre's website:
"The Deaf Heritage Centre is located within Deaf Village Ireland in Dublin 7. It was set up in 1999 by a group of past pupils of St Joseph’s School for Deaf Boys, Cabra.

The initial aims of the group were to collect and preserve the priceless artefacts from this school. Since then, it has expanded its reach to include other schools and organisations, including deaf clubs around the country.

At present, the centre has the exhibition room, library, administration/ research room and archives. In the archives, there are numerous old and rare artefacts such as school rolls, correspondences, photographs, film reels, books, all of which are priceless and have to be protected from natural damage. 

The major aims and objectives of the centre are not merely to preserve the artefacts and materials and to exhibit them, but also to recreate the chequered historical experience of the deaf community in the past 200 years,

The centre is open to the public at large, particularly students, historians, academics and researchers."

11.6 Tommaso Pendola Museum

11.6 Tommaso Pendola Museum

tomassopendola6

Address:

Via Tommaso Pendola n. 35
Siena, Italy

From Wikipedia:
"The Pendola Institute is a foundation established for the treatment of severe congenital deafness, located on Via Tommaso Pendola #35-43 in the town centre of Siena, region of Tuscany, Italy.

It has a long history, starting as a charitable institution founded by the Genoese Scolopi priest Tommaso Pendola (1800-1883) in the early 1820s, and promulgating an oralist therapy for the deaf-mutes. The subsequent decades have modified the funding and scope of activities.

The oral method, fostered by Pendola, involved lip reading, was the main method used in Europe during the 19th and most of the 20th-century. Some sources claim that Roman Catholicism favoured oral tradition, versus sign language methods, because speech was required for confession.

After Pendola's death, the name was changed by decree of Umberto I to the Royal Institute Pendola for Deaf Mutes.

In 1980 the school was closed and the students were transferred mainly to Istituto Gualandi. 

Today the headquarters of the former institute houses the museum dedicated to the school, full of handicrafts made by pupils and specific equipment used in the classroom."

11.7 Døvehistorisk Selskab

11.7 Døvehistorisk Selskab

Dvehistorisk Selskab

Address:

Langelinieskolen
Kastelsvej 58
2100 Copenhagen, Denmark

http://www.dovehistoriskselskab.dk

From the Museum's website:
"Døvehistorisk Selskab (Danish Deaf History Society) was established in 1981 for the purpose of collecting, archiving and publishing material which illuminates the conditions, lives and work of the deaf in Denmark.

The Society has set up a Historical Artifact Collection containing books, pictures and other material which illustrates the history of the deaf in Denmark through time.

The Historical Artifact Collection and the Museum are located at Langelinieskolen, the School for the Deaf in Copenhagen.

The Museum is small (approximately 400 items), archives (approximately 10.000 both documents and pictures), library (approximately 2.000 books about deafness and sign language).

There is a small exhibition about Deaf life in Denmark and a collection about Deaf and sign language from all around the world.

The Collection is entirely based on voluntary work, consequently the Society is only capable of serving the members, the school staff and deaf individuals interested in deaf history."

11.8 Museum of Deaf Education (Museum voor Dovenonderwijs)

11.8 Museum of Deaf Education (Museum voor Dovenonderwijs)

Instituut voor Doven

The Museum of Deaf Education was located in one of the old chapels of the Institute for the Deaf in Sint Michielsgestel (NL). When the buildings were sold in 2021, the Museum was closed down - possibly permanently. Attempts are being made to relocate it to a new location. 

The Museum as it was until early 2021:

museum  

klassen

You can find an interview with Piet Borneman, the curator of the Museum, elsewhere on this website. 

backtotop

 

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Quotes:

  • "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. 
  • "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
  • “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
  • "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

  • the past can hurt

    From: Walt Disney, The Lion King

  • "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/
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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 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
  • "Inclusion is moving from “we tolerate your presence” to “we WANT you here with us”.
    Jillian Enright in The Social Model of Disability, 2021
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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.
  • "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
  • “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