Blackboard!
A story about Deaf oppression and forced oralism. Chelle who is Deaf has experienced much of that most of her life. When she was in primary school in the 1980s, she along with many of the students were subjected to oralism and disallowed from signing Auslan. Blackboard! tells the story of the nun that spat as she spoke with anger much of the time and would hit the kids if they made so much as a tiny mistake even in spoken words. Chelle was one of the very few kids made to wear an electric shock device called the Tickle Talker to 'help her hear' by shocks through the fingers. As Chelle reached end of primary school, she said no more! When she went to high school, she was finally able to learn her native language, Auslan (Australian Sign Language). She reclaimed her power as a Deaf person, her language and identity. The shoes represent taking back that power and leaving the nun powerless. This work was part of Chelle's Master research studies on social justice, displacement of the Deaf community, Deaf oppression and memories of those experiences which were cathartic through her creative process making. The install is video work projection, found object (shoes) and textile, blackboard, and part of the finished install included her work from earlier in 2021, the puppet from Write It Down! relating to audism and the ongoing effects of audism to the Deaf community. The puppet represents the child in Chelle's experience and the video on the phone in the puppet is the ongoing experience of audist attitudes that we are trying to eradicate in the Deaf community.

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