Week 7

For me, Week 7 is probably the excited one because we had Peter Niemalä who talked about The Highway to Deaf Communities, mainly on Deaf History. The other one is Deaftopia, a video production task. Being a graduate of Digital Media and Photography, and Deaf History being my hobby, I took a big interest in seeing the presentation and doing the video production task.

Peter explained the core of Deaf identity, better as “Deaf World” often defined by the strong Deaf community. Focusing on Deaf sports, he talked about Copenhagen Deaf Football Club being the 3rd biggest Deaf sport organization in the world in 1876 after Ohio School for the Deaf’s Baseball and Rugby team in 1870 and Glasgow Deaf and Dumb Football Club in 1871.

He also collects photographs of Deaf graves which contain Deaf symbolic logos, for example, Antoine Dresse, the late Secretary General of the CISS. His grave has the CISS logo on it, along with Belgian Deaf organizations. John Lovett has a newly Deaflympics logo on his grave. That logo was released publicly just before his death.

Linking up with Deaflympics topic, he briefly talked of some interesting facts about athletes.

He showed us his hobby, collecting Deaf-related stamps. He currently had about 105 stamps, all with Deaf related, events, disabled event but with Deaf issue on the stamp, Deaf portrait, (in fact there is only one Deaf portrait – Terence Parkin, a swimmer from South Africa). He included ONE sample each of the most famous Deaf people (to us, deafened people) like Beethoven and Goya. In my note, Sir Winston Spencer Churchill, the Great Briton, was deafened in his very late age and wore hearing aids during debates in the House of Parliament. It is mentioned that he sometimes turned his hearing aids and dozed off. He was noticed by the whole politicians, but continued without the Prime Minister because after all, he won the war which got million of people’s respects. (Peter, if you are reading that, you may need to get a sample copy of the stamp of the great man himself to go with your collection).

Finally, Peter showed old films, which showed Edward Miner Gallaudet and George Veditz, with his famous signing quote – “As long we have deaf people on earth, we will have signs,… the noblest gift God has given to deaf people.” (1913).

Three cheers must go to Peter for his presentation on Deaf History to us, the youths!

Deaftopia

Vivien gave us a task of creating a commercial film which reflects Deaf as the majority and hearing as the minority (as opposed in the current situation). We had been given 16 hours to complete the task. We were divided in two groups. In my group, I had Thomas, Amanda, Sigrid, Jerome and Ronan. What a debate it was! We tried to agree on the ideal story to progress with the video production. Eventually we agreed to do the “Bionic Hand Implant” which is totally opposed as cochlear implant. I filmed, cut and directed the whole process. I found it enjoyable with actors, who contributed with additional ideas and placements.

After cutting, we decided to add subtitles which were in English. I thought the film is a BIG success, it is just BRILLIANT, considering we had 16 hours to do that. The film is more of a political side, oh; it would bring lots of debates amongst politicians if it was shown to them…

We watched the other group, “Silencexyl” it is really funny, and I would have to say it is brilliant! It is a good commercial amongst Deaf people who tend to make fun of their “disability”. The film does persuade people to look us as ethnic minority, and to protect our identity.

Both films have a big impact and will work on both Deaf and hearing audiences.