1. Introduction

In the introduction, you can read more about Deaf Museums, the Deaf Museums project and about this report. 

A Deaf Museum is a Museum (brick and mortar or virtual on the internet) about Deaf culture, Deaf history, Deaf education, Deaf sports, Deaf arts, or all of the above. 

A Deaf Museum can be small, for instance a single room at a Deaf school or a Deaf club. Or it can be large, like the Deaf Museums in Norway and France.  In part 2 of this book, you can read more about Deaf Museums in Europe. 

Deaf Museums are important:

• to make Deaf people, their culture and their history visible to the general public;
• to help people remember - or learn for the first time - how Deaf people lived in the past, or
• how Deaf people live in the present;
• to make people aware of the many famous Deaf people in the past and in the present: educators, scientists, artists, sportsmen;
• to teach Deaf children that they are part of a large community of Deaf people, both national and international. 

Museums about their history and their culture are of course important for all minority groups. But they are even more important for Deaf people, because most Deaf children (appr. 95%) are born in hearing families. Many Deaf children are now mainstreamed - they go to a school for hearing children. Some children and their families may not meet a Deaf adult for many years.

• "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

• "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

• "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

• "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

• "Inclusion is moving from “we tolerate your presence” to “we WANT you here with us”.

  Jillian Enright in The Social Model of Disability, 2021

• 

  From: Walt Disney, The Lion King

• "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

• "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

• "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)

• "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

• “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

• "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

• "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

In the previous century Deaf children in schools for the Deaf never met a Deaf adult, either. All their teachers were hearing, most of their families were hearing. This made some children think that all Deaf people died young, that there were no Deaf adults.

For many years, Deaf culture and Deaf history were only transmitted informally, in Deaf families, Deaf clubs, Deaf associations.  The general public, historians, professionals working with Deaf people, even some Deaf people themselves didn't - and don't - know that Deaf history and Deaf Museums exist.

Deaf Museums are important because they can help make Deaf culture, Deaf history more visible and accessible to all: Deaf and hearing, children and adults.

Source: https://icom.museum/en/resources/standards-guidelines/museum-definition/

"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

In many ways Deaf Museums are at a disadvantage when you compare them to mainstream Museums.

First, because Deaf history has only been studied for a small number of years. Of course Deaf people and the Deaf community have a long history, but their history was transmitted informally within Deaf clubs and Deaf families. And only within the Deaf community.

In the past, there were no Deaf historians. Hearing historians were not even aware that there was a Deaf community, with its own stories to tell.

"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

Second, very few Deaf people wrote books. For a very long time, almost all books written about Deaf people and about sign language were written by hearing people, usually hearing educators.

It was not until the invention of first film, and then video that Deaf people could document their language and their history in their own language: a sign language. 

The third reason is that there were, and still are very few Deaf Museum professionals. Most Deaf Museums were and are started and maintained by volunteers. With great enthusiasm, but with little or no access to mainstream Museum skills and expertise. 

As a result, there are few Deaf Museums in Europe. Some of these are at risk, others have already have had to close down in recent years, because volunteers are elderly and about to retire, because Deaf societies and Deaf clubs have closed down, because the buildings of large residential schools for the Deaf were sold, because many Deaf children now attend mainstream schools.

But at the same time, mainstream Museums and Museum professionals are discovering the Deaf community as a minority with its own language and culture, and with stories to tell that are important for Deaf people, but also for the general public. By working together and by learning from each other, we may yet be able to preserve and share Deaf History and Culture.

"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 sides, 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

For the Deaf Museums project, we sent an online survey to mainstream Museums and Museum professionals. One of the questions we asked, was:  

"Would 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 be willing to invest time and/or effort in working with a Deaf organization or the Deaf community in your area in helping set up a Deaf Exhibition or Deaf Museum?"

Over 80% of the respondents said: Yes, they were willing to consider this.  Of course, the sample was not representative, Museum professionals with no interest in Deaf history, the Deaf community probably ignored the survey. But many mainstream professionals are willing to cooperate. 

This book is one of the outputs of the Deaf Museums project.  It was made for Deaf sign language users who are interested in learning about Museum skills, who work at a Deaf Museum, or who want to start a Deaf Museum.

The book gives an overview of what we learned during the 30 months of the Deaf Museums Project: October 2020 - March 2023. 
In a way, it is also a 'how to' guide: where do you start when you want to build a Deaf Museum? What do you have to take into account? What lessons can you learn from existing Museums, both mainstream and Deaf Museums?

The Deaf Museums Project and the research for this book started during the Covid epidemic - 2020 to 2022 - a time when people were not allowed to travel or meet, and when Museums, schools, research centres and universities had to go into lockdown. It was a time when everyone's main concern was how to stay safe and how to keep our loved ones safe and well. Because of this, we are all the more grateful to the people who were willing to contribute to this report during these difficult times:  the project partners as well as everyone who we consulted, contacted,  asked for assistance, information, guidance and answers to our many questions. Without their help, we could not have written this report.

Why read this book?

Maybe as a first stepping stone because you are considering a career in the mainstream Museum world. Maybe because you want to work in a Deaf Museum, or because you want to build one.

Or, like the partners in the Deaf Museums project,  because you want to learn what you can do to help preserve and share Deaf History and the Deaf Heritage.

This book is also for mainstream Museum professionals who want to know more about Deaf Museums and about working together with the Deaf Community.

Museum Views & Deaf Perspectives

The book consists of 20 chapters, each about a different topic. You can read the chapters in any order that you want, in your own time. There is no teacher, there are no tests. 

Part 1 of the Book is about mainstream Museum Views. In this part, you can read about recent trends in mainstream Museums that may be relevant for Deaf Museums. It's also useful background information, if you want to contact or collaborate with a mainstream Museum, because it will introduce you to the vocabulary that Museum professionals use.

Part 2 of the book is about Deaf Museums and the results of our survey of Deaf Museums. Because the Deaf Museums project started during the Covid pandemic, most of our contacts unfortunately were by email or Zoom only.  Again, because of the Covid pandemic, most people were busy with trying to survive, to cope with restrictions, lock-downs, illness, death. Part 2 of the books should nevertheless give you an impression of the Deaf Museums in Europe and the challenges they face. 

For people who want to know more, we have included links to additional resources: Further reading. 

Language and Spelling

We've tried to write the texts in easy to read English. The Google Translate button enables you to read the text in your national written language. 

In our own texts, we will use Deaf with a big D. For more information about Deaf with a big D and deaf with a little d, please read the information in the Terminology section. 

We will also use Museum with a capital letter.

In the texts that are quotes from other authors, we will of course use the spelling  of the original authors. 

ChatGPT Examples

After we'd published the draft of this report, ChatGPT became available online. ChatGPT is on online tool that can answer questions about anything. At the moment, anyone can use it for free.

ChatGPT uses information that is available on the internet to write one or several answers to a question that you ask. It can do this is any (?) language.  People use ChatGPT to write articles, essays, letters, advertisements, summaries,  books.  They type a question and within seconds ChatGPT produces a well-written answer. The language will be correct, but there may be mistakes in the content. Chat'GPT  uses information that it finds on the internet, and of course there is a lot of false information there. But most of the time, the texts that ChatGPT produces are very useful. 

 We probably could have used ChatGPT to write this book for us. ChatGPT definitely could have written the chapters about mainstream Museums. Maybe also the texts about Deaf Museums.  However, we decided not to use ChatGPT to rewrite this book for us. We did use it to check the contents of all chapters to make sure that we did  not forget something important.

We also used ChatGPT to write examples for us, to show you how you can use this tool to write a mission statement, a business plan, or even an application for funding. You can use these examples  for inspiration. Or you may use ChatGPT to help you write your own texts.   You can find all ChatGPT examples, in the Annex. 

Navigation

The Table of Contents gives you access to the chapters.

The Index is a list of keywords used in the text with links to the relevant pages in the book. (Work in progress!)

Terminology   will send you to a different part of the Deaf Museums website. Here, you will find explanations of Museum Studies terms and Deaf Studies terms.