Sign of the Times (2023)
An Alphabetical and Archival Guide to British Sign Language.
Made up of two parts ‘Sign of the Times’ is an educational resource that begins the teaching of British Sign Language through the significance of the British Deaf Community and their history.
In response to a brief that asked us to create an educational resource. I feel the most successful education should highlight a subjects greater context and ignite passion and love for the topic - in this instance, British Sign Language.
The archival guide was made after I began producing a collage of images using the British Deaf Association’s ‘SHARE: The Deaf Visual Archive’, as a way of showing the scale of the British Deaf community. The levels of information vary, a nod towards the lack of documentation of deaf people throughout history due to institutionalisation, Eugenics, Audism etc. As someone who had studied BSL and learnt a lot about the community and people who use it, this truly has been a passion project.
The alphabetical guide was made for (D/deaf) BSL teachers to aid the learning of finger spelling alongside key Deaf culture information. As we finally see the creation of a BSL GCSE I think it’s more important than ever that we remind people who and who this language exists for and the culture that sits within. Each postcard includes the letter, its finger spelling, a word that represents a key part of British deaf culture/history with an explanation, a related archive image and its description.
