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16. Visitors of Deaf Museums

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Intro Chapter 16

Intro Chapter 16

The number of visitors is as important for Deaf Museums, as it is for mainstream Museums. Even if access is free, the number of visitors can be used to show funding organisations that the Deaf Museum deserves its funding.

In our survey of Deaf Museums, we asked our contact persons who their target audience is and how many people actually visit their Museum each year. Most Deaf Museums see both Deaf and hearing people, including the general public, as target groups but the number of visitors and the strategies to attract visitors are limited. To attract more visitors, at least one Deaf Museum considers changing its story. 

16.1 Visitors of Deaf Museums

16.1 Visitors of Deaf Museums

Market Research

Most Deaf Museums are run by volunteers, with (very) limited funding. They do not have the resources for market or visitor research.  

Deaf visitors

The primary target group for most Deaf Museums are Deaf people in their region or country. Some also want to be relevant and interesting to hearing people. Not only people with some link to the Deaf community such as families of deaf children, teachers in deaf education, sign language students, but also the general public.

Hearing visitors

The Deaf Museums involve hearing visitors in different ways (see our Survey of Deaf Museums). All Deaf Museums of course welcome hearing visitors, but in  most cases these visitors have some link to the Deaf community. They are sign language interpreters, sign language students, or friends or family members of Deaf people.  
In the survey, The Norsk Døvemuseum writes that they were at that time (May 2022) discussing who their main target group is and how this will affect the story of the Museum: " We have a debate among our employees these days; is this a museum for the deaf community, or for the hearing to learn about the deaf community? We think this is difficult and have not come to a conclusion yet."

Or maybe a Deaf Museum can be of interest to both Deaf and hearing visitors? 

"Peruzzi described the museum (the National Deaf Life Museum at Gallaudet University) as serving “a dual role” for those visitors. “For members of the Deaf community, it is a place to see themselves, learn about their history, and develop their sense of personal identity, For hearing visitors, it offers a chance to learn about our culture, examine their own expectations and experiences of Deaf people, and feel the vibrancy of our signing community.”

In: The Washington Post, August 6, 2022

Children, young people

Most Deaf Museums consider Deaf children and young people as important target groups of their Museum. Children and young people must learn about the Deaf Community and its history. Most Deaf Museums however do not have the resources to organise special activities for Deaf children and young people.

The Norwegian Deaf Museum in Trondheim is an exception. They offer organised tours for different age groups.

For primary schools:  Sign Language School

"Is it possible to listen with the eyes and communicate with your body?
«Sign Language School» is a teaching concept where we want to give the students greater knowledge of being different. Maybe not so different anyway? We use deaf and deafness as an example in dialogue and teach students about their history, culture and language."

For Middle and High School:  «Normality Check»

"Is it possible to be normal? The «Normality Check» is an instructional concept where we want to let students participate in a dialogue about being normal and abnormal. We use deaf and deafness as an example in the dialogue on technological development in order to help or normalise, and about genetic engineering and ethical aspects of stigmatisation and diagnosis."

Source: https://norsk-dovemuseum.no/en/education

Visitors from other countries

Most Deaf Museums do not see foreign visitors as a target group. Their websites are in the national language and/or sign language only. Information at the Museum is in the national written and sign language. As far as we know, none have guides who sign International Sign or a foreign sign language. 

Number of visitors

The number of visitors to most Deaf Museums is small. Some are only open on one or two days a week, some only by appointment. 

The target group of a Deaf Museum, deaf or hearing, local or national, is important because the story that the Museum tells (see Chapter 2), the selection of exhibits to display and the design of the exhibition, must all take the needs and preferences of the target audience into account. 

In our survey of Deaf Museums, we asked for the number of visitors - in pre-Covid times:

Kuurojen museo (FI) About 2000 visitors per year. But In our web-museum we have 20.000-40.000 visitors per year.
Norsk Døvemuseum (NO) Usually, we have about 3000 visitors a year (a low amount).
Døvehistorisk Selskab (DK) 100 people per month visit our collection
Musée d'Histoire et de Culture des Sourds (FR) The number has continued to increase since the museum opened in 2013, except during the COVID health crisis; last year we had 235 visitors; in 2020: 168, and then in 2019: 419.
Deaf Heritage Centre UK Visitors book their visits and come to open days. (No numbers reported)

 

 In our Survey for Mainstream Museums, we also asked about the number of (pre-Covid) visitors. The numbers vary between 700.000 to 1.8 million per year.  

backtotop

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Quotes:

  • "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)
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • “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 past can hurt

    From: Walt Disney, The Lion King

  • "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
  • "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/
  • "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
  • "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
  • “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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "Inclusion is moving from “we tolerate your presence” to “we WANT you here with us”.
    Jillian Enright in The Social Model of Disability, 2021
  • "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
  • “One story makes you weak. But as soon as we have one-hundred stories, you will be strong.”
    Chris Cleave in "Little Bee", 2008
  • "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
  • "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. 
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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 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)
  • "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.
  • "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
  • "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