Audio described introduction to Finger Talk

This is the audio description for Finger Talk.

Hello, my name is Laurie Britton Newell. I am the curator of Finger Talk. 

Finger Talk is a new British Sign Language artwork by Cathy Mager.

It brings together archival films, contemporary performance, animation and sound.

Collectively, this installation foregrounds BSL as a living, evolving language with a rich cultural history.

On entering the gallery, there is a curtain that hangs from the floor to the ceiling.

It is dark green and has a clear window aperture that reveals a film being projected in the space beyond. 

As you move further into the space, you encounter a large, curved projection screen.

In this part of the gallery, the floor is covered with dark green carpet. Mustard yellow benches and stools are dotted around the gallery. Semi-translucent curved panels extend either side of the screen, adding to the circle and making the installation feel quite enclosed.

The panels have many illustrations of letters and hands printed on them. These are a mixture of black and white and colour drawings. They demonstrate how to finger spell letters from the alphabet. They date from the 17th century to the early 20th century.

They have been reproduced from historic booklets, many of which were drawn, printed and distributed by deaf people. Some of the original works are held in Wellcome’s Collection. Because these are very old and from different time periods, the BSL finger spelling alphabet that is used today is not the same.

At the start of the film, the large screen is also filled with these finger spelling illustrations, making you feel surrounded by hands. There are three chapters in the film that are played on continuous loop, which begins and ends with the historic fingerspelling illustrations.

In the first chapter, three performers appear on screen. One is wearing a pink top and light brown trousers. She is of South Asian heritage and she has shoulder length hair. She is called Nadia. A second performer is wearing a dark brown top and light brown trousers. She has long hair and she is Caucasian. She is called Lisa. A third performer is wearing a grey t-shirt and light brown trousers; he is of Afro-Caribbean heritage. His name is Jayden. 

The three performers are signing. They are communicating through a combination of BSL and Visual Vernacular – a type of poetic storytelling that combines sign language and choreography. Nadia, Lisa and Jayden positions interchange throughout the course of the film and they are shown at varying scales, sometimes larger than life and sometimes their forms recede and are repeated behind them as opaque shadows.  

They sign words such as shame, resilience, isolation, empowerment, hate, and pride.

Black grids and graph lines appear in the backdrop. There are also red and blue dots, and ‘x’s that look like they have been made with a biro pen. They are taken from audiograms which have been donated by deaf people, some from members of the artist's family. Audiograms are visual representations of the clinical test for hearing.

The results have significant implications over the course a deaf person’s life, dictating things like where they can go to school or what access to support they might have. 

During a particular sequence, Nadia, Lisa and Jayden all make a pressing motion with their thumbs. This symbolises the experience of having to take a hearing test. At another point, words appear that say things like ‘low pitched’, ‘normal hearing’, ‘severe hearing loss’ with corresponding pictograms such as jet plane, a lawn mower, leaves and birds. As the sequence continues, the birds start to take flight, forming a flock, that fly above the performers.

In the next chapter of the film, a series of rare historic film clips from the British Deaf Association's archive, and others, is shown. They date from the late 1920’s to the early 1970’s.  They capture people using BSL while socialising at picnics, dances, bus trips and sporting events. One film was taken during a deaf club outing to Bournemouth, another to mark the deaf Olympics that took place in 1935. A repeating clip is a close-up of signing hands taken from an introduction to a silent film. 

They are shown as three separate frames, sometimes they are in synch – but for the most part there are three different things taking place simultaneously. Many of the clips are black and white, occasionally colour sequences appear, and the colours are quite muted. 

These clips provide insight into the history of the British Deaf community in a way that has rarely been seen. For contemporary BSL users, much of the signing will be hard to understand, as BSL has changed a lot over the intervening decades. People are making jokes, and there are many different informal conversations happening, crowds of people all communicating at once.

In the third chapter of the film, the historic footage fades and the performers Nadia, Jayden and Lisa reappear. In this final sequence, the performers share personal stories of being tested, diagnosed and labelled. Communicating feelings of shame and rage at the suppression of their language. Their movements also share messages of hope – when Nadia makes the sign for a sun rising for example. The feeling of connection with others is expressed through a sequence where all three performers use their fingers to walk over each other. Ultimately, they express the idea of kinship that comes with belonging within the deaf community, and the power of holding their language in their hands. 

The soundscape that accompanies the installation was created by deaf and disabled musicians. It features a combination of natural sounds, vocals, percussion and wind instruments, and it is being played from speakers overhead. Sampled sounds from hearing tests are also woven in with music from the 1920’s and 1930’s.

To the right of the entrance of the space, there is a freestanding unit where you can access a vibration vest which further adds to the multi-sensory experience of the installation.

'Finger Talk' invites visitors to step into a space shaped by deaf perspectives – a portal into a deaf world. A space where the narrative changes from hearing loss to deaf gain.