By Joseph C. Hill
On November 6 to 9, 2019, at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) in Rochester,
New York, the wintry weather came early with icy rain that turned to snow and with a significant drop in
temperature. Nevertheless, to paraphrase the well-worn line from Elsa in Frozen, the cold never
bothered nearly 200 people, set on traveling locally, nationally, and internationally to attend the
ARTiculating Deaf Experiences conference on the NTID campus. The people came at the perfect time
for a weekend full of concurrent and independent events related to art: the exhibition of Color to the
Cube at the Dyer Arts Center featuring stunning, engaging, and thought-provoking artworks by more
than 40 artists of color; the NTID ASL Lecture’s guest presenter, Mia Sanchez, expressing her
thoughts regarding What Color is Your Soul; the opening reception at the De’VIA: The Manifesto
Comes of Age exhibit held at the Memorial Art Gallery; the opening night of People of the Third Eye, a
play production written and performed by Deaf playwrights and actors; and the 8 th Annual DeafMute
Banquet celebrating the 307 th birthday anniversary of Abbé de l’ Épée and memorializing Deaf
ancestors of great artistic talent.
The conference invited presenters to the Panara Theatre’s stage to give their critical and multi-
layered thoughts about Deaf experiences, drawing on their academic and artistic disciplines, which
included art, literature, film, theatre, Deaf studies, cultural studies, linguistics, history, and deaf
education. Every morning, the conference organizers, Tabitha Jacques (Dyer Arts Center director) and
Patti Durr (RIT/NTID Associate Professor), opened with the announcements before ceding the stage to
the keynote presenters, speaking for 75 minutes on the critical contributions and developments in their
respective fields. Olivier Schetrit, a French postdoctoral researcher with a PhD in anthropology,
engaged the audience through International Sign with a historical narrative of the Deaf art
developments that incorporate elements of signed language, visual cultural practices, and Deaf pride.
Kristi Merriweather, an American educator and Deaf learning specialist from Atlanta, Georgia, took on
the tagline, “doing it for the culture,” to highlight the need for visible Black Deaf cultural and linguistic
features in art, literature and media to promote multicultural and intersectional representation of Deaf
experiences, in this particular case, Black Deaf experiences. Lastly, Fernanda de Araugo Machado, a
Brazilian professor at the Federal University of Santa Catrina talked about a published collection of
Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) poems.
(Continue on the next page)
The Power of ASL
10
Winter 2019 – Issue 16