The signed road
An estimated 5,000 Finnish deaf or children born to deaf parents use sign language as their mother tongue or first language in Finland.
Sign language has been recognized as an independent language in Finland quite late. Its use in schools was even punishable as late as 1960’s. However, for the majority of the deaf, it is the only language in which they can genuinely communicate. For them Finnish is the first foreign language.
Sign language is still associated with prejudices that easily exclude the deaf from shared experiences. I wanted to make sign language visible by my photos.
In the photos my brother and his wife, both of whom have been deaf since birth, sign a poem I have written. In the photos, I have tried to focus on the most important things: the hands and the gaze. I think I managed to reach something essential in sign language: the close eye contact is maintained during the conversation.
The photographs were a part of a group exhibition ’17 roads´in 2012.