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Wellcome Collection

How to use this guide

Hello and welcome to the first stop of this guide to '1880 THAT'. My name is Laurie Britton Newell, I am the curator of the exhibition and I am going to explain how this guide works.  

This is stop 1 of 11 stops. The stops are approximately 2-4 minutes long. 

This first stop provides information about access resources. To skip to information about the exhibition go to stop 2, which is an introduction to the exhibition.  

In stops 3-11, I talk about the artworks in the exhibition. I explain the artists’ ideas and provide some visual description of each artwork. 

You have accessed the guide by scanning a QR code. You can also access the audio information by picking up one of the handheld players and a headset from the freestanding pick-up station, where Stop 1 is located.   

A white tactile floor line is designed to support wayfinding between the stops. When you arrive at each artwork or its interpretation text panel, this is indicated on the floor by a grey square with raised dots. There are also grey squares with raised dots to indicate the location of benches for the film works. 

You will find a tactile QR code and stop number within arm's reach of the grey square. The QR codes are printed in black raised ink on the bottom right corner of each interpretation panel. They also have a tactile number. 

If you need any assistance, there are members of our team in the gallery wearing a black Wellcome Collection top.  

The floor line in the lobby starts at the freestanding pick up point. In addition to the handheld devices, here you will find a screen with a British Sign Language introduction, and shelves with several different printed guides. These are: a brown A5-sized gallery guide; a white, A4-sized large print guide that includes a map of the floor line and a list of all the digital guide stops; and a green, A4-sized visual story booklet. This provides pre-visit information about the exhibition, using images, symbols and short written explanations.  

As you follow the tactile floor line into the gallery, there is a bench on your right hand side. There is more seating throughout the exhibition, which will be indicated in some of the stops.  

The tactile floor line will finish at Stop 11 at the last work in the exhibition.  

The next stop is an introduction to the exhibition. With the free-standing pick-up station on your left, follow the tactile floor line to the tactile square for Stop 2, which is just inside the exhibition entrance, on the wall to your right. Note that the glass doors are quite heavy, and the flooring inside the exhibition is wooden.

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‘1880 THAT’ exhibition at Wellcome Collection

Introduction to the exhibition

Hello I am Laurie Britton Newell the curator of 1880 THAT, which is a new exhibition by the artists Christine Sun Kim and Thomas Mader. The artwork in the exhibition explores sign language’s relationship to spoken language, and seeks to draw attention to historic decision-making that still influences how we communicate today.  

The exhibition’s title, '1880 THAT', is a reference to The Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf, which was held in Milan in 1880. At the conference the attendees, who were predominantly hearing people, discussed whether oral education should replace sign language in Deaf schools. In the aftermath of the Milan conference the teaching of sign language was sidelined and suppressed, resulting in exclusion and stigma for Deaf people around the world. The impacts of this are still felt to this day. 

The word THAT in the context of the exhibition title is an American Sign Language term that adds emphasis to a statement. It can mean different things such as: ‘That’s what I mean!’  and ‘Enough said’. Here it’s used to add significance to the date 1880, essentially underlining that the Milan Conference was a very significant event in Deaf history. 

There are nine artworks in the exhibition that range from large moving sculptures to smaller scale drawing and films. The gallery walls are painted white, and the atmosphere is bright and spacious. There are several freestanding curved walls that are arranged at different angles in the middle of the gallery. There are window apertures within them that allow you to look through at different artworks and across the gallery.  

Kim and Mader’s artworks use word-play, visual puns and are full of humour. They want to draw attention in a very direct way to the ripple effects of the Milan conference, to highlight the dangers of what happens when there is a disconnection between policymaking and the people impacted by those decisions.  

Several artworks in the exhibition refer to Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone. He was also involved in Deaf education. He was a prominent spokesperson who argued against sign language and for this reason he is often regarded negatively by Deaf people.

The '1880 THAT' exhibition addresses the fundamental human right to communicate and asks us to consider what it means to live with the threat of losing one's language. The exhibition also invites you to explore new possibilities for understanding between signed and spoken languages.

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1880 THAT

There is no plaque on the building where the Milan Conference took place. Kim and Mader have created a commemorative brick to contest the erasure of this pivotal moment in Deaf history.   

Here, two of these bricks have been installed in the wall of the gallery. The bricks are a strong red terracotta colour. One side of the brick is stamped with the date 1880 and the other side of the brick stamped with the word THAT. The numerals and letters have been designed in a typeface called Dia - a contemporary design inspired by the early sans serif typefaces of the 1800s. The artists wanted to subtly make the point that although this event happened in the past it still affects the present.

The time of the Conference was defined by a Victorian understanding of manners, modesty and restrained expression. This goes some way to explain why sign language was viewed to be crude and immodest by people like Alexander Graham Bell and his contemporaries.  

Another significant element of urban life in this era, especially in London, was the manufacturing and use of bricks. This led the artists to think about the significance of bricks as building blocks of cities but also to allude to the idea of the building blocks of language. 

Bricks also appear in some other works in the exhibition.

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ATTENTION

This work is called 'Attention'. The title is spelt in capital letters. 

This large inflating sculpture is about 5 meters long. It explores the different ways in which attention can be directed and received by people in Deaf and hearing cultures.  

In American Sign Language one of the most common ways to attract attention is by waving downwards with one hand and tapping in a person's field of vision. Another way is to point. 

The giant arm in front of you has a waving hand. The arm is bright red and made of a thin nylon fabric. The artists chose red because of its connotations with alerting people to danger, like a stop sign.  

The arm emerges from the wall on the left and points towards the back wall of the gallery.  

Unlike the other elements of the exhibition, the arm is at a diagonal to the walls. It’s orientated to point in the direction of the Houses of Parliament in Westminster.  

The arm slowly inflates and deflates on a timer and the sound you can hear is the fan that is blowing air into the arm. An area on the back of the gallery wall looks as if it has been worn away by the repetitive action of the hand. This symbolizes the ongoing need to advocate for Deaf rights and inclusion. When the arm is deflated it represents the exhaustion of constantly needing to do this.

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F On Eye

This animation is called 'F on Eye'. ‘I’ is spelt ‘e-y-e’. In American Sign Language the sign for F also means 'peep'. 

It is filmed from the perspective of a person inside an apartment peering through a peephole in the front door. The person appears to be gripped by fear but compelled to keep looking. In the hallway, an ominous nose-shaped creature seems to be advancing towards the door at slow but steady speed.  

Since the animation has no sound the subtitles carry a lot of the meaning.  Like a horror movie soundtrack, the captions convey the growing tension, and an atmosphere of suspense and unease. The captions are written from the perspective of the apartment itself: The lock feels flimsy, the doormat doesn’t want to welcome anymore.

The artists chose to make the threatening character in the shape of a nose because while it is quite ridiculous it is also sinister. The nose is intended to symbolise decision-makers such as Alexander Graham Bell who tried to suppress sign language. 

The peephole perspective from inside the apartment communicates a feeling of a home under threat, a feeling of being vulnerable in one's own home. 'F on Eye' asks us to consider what it feels like when this safe space – one’s native language – is under attack.

To the right of this stop there is a set of headphones on the wall, where scene by scene audio description of the film can be heard.

 Please follow the tactile line to the next stop to reach the bench situated in front of the film.

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Look Up My Nose

This next work is called 'Look Up My Nose'. 

The inventor Alexander Graham Bell was a strong advocate for a phonetic system called Visible Speech. This system was created by his father Melville Bell, and was used to teach Deaf people to speak with their voices. 

The shape of this sculpture has been modelled from photographs of Alexander and Melville’s noses. It looks like a very strange oversized cluster of noses that are hanging down from the ceiling like a bell. 

It is about two metres in diameter. It is a pale green colour. The colour was chosen by the artists to symbolise the kind of green you might find in a hospital because they wanted to allude to the medical perspective on deafness. A view that sees deafness only as something that needs to be cured.

The work is playing with the English saying to “look down one’s nose”, meaning to think of oneself as superior. It refers to the Bells’ disdain for sign language users.

Although it's not always associated with sign language, the nose does play an important role in conveying grammar, vocabulary and nuanced expression in sign language. For example, in British Sign Language, an upwards flick of the index finger off the nose can mean ‘stuck-up’. 

This sculpture was designed with an audio engineer and drum maker, and it has an automated drum stick inside that plays a sequence of beats on a timer, every 10 minutes.  It has been designed to create a strong bass frequency while simultaneously pushing air out through the nostrils. 

If you follow the tactile line to the next stop you will be in the best place to feel the vibrations and the reverberating air from the nostrils as you stand beneath it.

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Running Gag

It is a framed pencil drawing about a metre square. The drawing depicts 254 noses drawn in cartoon style, in 17 rows. The bottom rows represent the 164 participants who attended the Milan Conference. They are drawn in monochrome pencil lines. 

All the noses apart from one are drawn with a condescending snort, or puff of air coming out of the nostrils. This is meant to represent the disdain that the majority of attendees had towards sign language.  

At the bottom right of the drawing, the only nose that is not snorting represents the one Deaf person who attended the conference, an American teacher called James Denison.  

The additional rows of noses towards the top of the drawing change from monochrome pencil lines to shades of green. It is the same pale hospital green that appears in the previous artwork.  It was chosen by the artists to allude to the medical perspective on deafness. These noses symbolise the followers of the oral system who long after the conference ended, continued to suppress sign language education.

The noses seem to float out of frame at the top of the picture in order to demonstrate the ongoing effects of the conference that are still felt today.

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What’s Left

Here the artists have reimagined four short scenes from the American children’s TV show 'Sesame Street'. It features the character Lefty the Salesman who was known for selling letters of the alphabet in a suspicious way to a character called Ernie. 

Over four scenes Lefty, played by Kim, tries to sell a series of items to Ernie, who is played by Mader, including an invisible ice cream cone, some air, a notebook and an empty box.  

Kim is dressed in a trench coat and a black hat and has a painted purple nose. Mader is in a black beanie hat and a stripy jumper and his nose is painted red. The lower halves of their bodies are hidden by a brick wall, which adds to the puppet show feel. It is filmed against a strong blue background that adds to the children’s TV aesthetic. 

'Sesame Street' was launched in 1969 and was the first mainstream TV show to incorporate sign language, and bring it into millions of homes worldwide. 

Linda Bove, a Deaf actress and one of the original cast members of 'Sesame Street', appears in 'What’s Left' as a celebrity cameo. Linda introduces each scene in the film and greets people in American Sign Language.

Kim and Mader themselves are not using American Sign Language, they set themselves the acting challenge of not using signs, just to use body language and facial expressions. This stems from the idea that when people are under threat or in hiding they rely more on hand gestures and body language.

The dialogue is conveyed through the subtitles.

The film refers to the absurdity of a language being judged as illegal, and how sign language communities had to exist underground following the Milan Conference.

To the right of this stop there is a set of headphones on the wall where a scene by scene audio description of the film can be heard.

Please follow the tactile line to the next stop to reach the bench in front of the film.

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This is the second part of the 'ATTENTION' sculpture. It is a giant red arm that has a pointing finger and represents a second way of attracting attention in  American Sign Language.

This large red arm is pointing towards Milan. The Milan Conference is the abbreviated name for ‘The Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf’ which took place in 1880 in Milan, Italy.  

The participants at the conference debated whether oral education should replace sign language for Deaf people. 164 people attended from different countries such as the UK, USA, and France, but only one participant at the conference was Deaf.

Although there were attendees who argued in favour of sign language, the majority voted in favour of oral education. The aftermath of the conference saw the systemic suppression of sign language and the decline of sign language users around the world.

The arm slowly inflates and deflates on a timer and the sound you can hear is the fan that is blowing air into the arm. An area on the back of the gallery wall looks as if it has been worn away by the pointing finger. This symbolizes the ongoing need to advocate for Deaf rights and inclusion. When the arm is deflated it represents the exhaustion of constantly needing to do this.

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NOT CROSS

This work is called 'NOT CROSS'. It is a red brick wall that is 11 metres long. The words I AM NOT CROSS are spelt out across it with capital letters that stand out slightly in relief from the surface of the brick. The letters are three metres tall.  

The work is about the different ways written language and body language communicate. Capital letters, italics and exclamation marks are the only ways written words can express the intensity of a feeling. But writing essentially removes emotion from language.

People can make a statement like ‘I am not cross’ while their body language conveys the opposite impression, essentially saying one thing when they mean another.

This disconnection between words and body language is something that the artists Kim and Mader have been working with as a subject in their work for some time.

Facial expressions are a key grammatical factor in sign language and this is something that hearing students learning sign language often struggle with. The level of intensity of a facial expression can often mean a world of difference to what is being expressed. Skilled sign language speakers can detect even the slightest inflection. Talking to a person who is not as skilled can lead to frustration and feel like talking to the proverbial brick wall.

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Eye Spy

This animation is called 'Eye Spy'. In the title ‘I’ is spelt 'e-y-e'.  It is very short and it plays on a repeating loop a bit like a meme. 

The work relates to an American Sign Language expression ‘If only you could see things through my eyes’. The sign is executed by making the gesture of passing a set of eyeballs back and forth between people.  

In the animation two transparent figures of a man and woman who represent Kim and Mader, pass a set of eyeballs back and forth between them endlessly. The transparency of the figures makes the movement of the eyeballs inside the skulls visible. They are jelly-like and the animation has a slightly scientific feel to it.

This gesture and its message resonate with the overarching theme of the exhibition: if the decision-makers at the Milan Conference could have seen through the eyes of the Deaf people for whom they were making decisions, they might have come to a different conclusion. 

'Eye Spy' connects to larger themes of patience, empathy and understanding.

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1880 THAT, an exhibition by Christine Sun Kim and Thomas Mader at Wellcome Collection. Gallery Photo: Steven Pocock

1880 THAT Stop 1 How to use this guide - QR code users.mp3

1880 That BSL Videos 01 Introduction to access resources for 1880 THAT landscape edit 2

1880AudioStop 2.mp3

1880 That BSL Videos 02 Introduction to the exhibition landscape edit 2

1880AudioStop 3.mp3

1880 That BSL Videos 03 1880 That landscape NEW edit 2

1880 THAT Stop 4 ATTENTION.mp3

1880 That BSL Videos 04 attention R landscape edit 2

1880AudioStop 5.mp3

1880 That BSL Videos 05 F on Eye landscape edit 3

1880AudioStop 6.mp3

1880 That BSL Videos 06 look up my nose landscape edit 2

1880AudioStop 7.mp3

1880 That BSL Videos 07 running gag landscape edit 2

1880AudioStop 8.mp3

1880 That BSL Videos 08 Whats Left landscape edit 2

1880 THAT Stop 9 ATTENTION.mp3

1880 That BSL Videos 09 attention L landscape edit 2

1880 THAT Stop 10 NOT CROSS.mp3

1880 That BSL Videos 10 I am not cross landscape NEW edit 2

1880 THAT Stop 11 Eye Spy.mp3

1880 That BSL Videos 11 Eye Spy landscape edit 2

1880 THAT: Christine Sun Kim and Thomas Mader

This playful exhibition of new and existing works by artists Christine Sun Kim and Thomas Mader explores sign language and the right to communicate.

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