Speak in ASL: Candid
The candid video Speak in ASL, 2005 is a hilarious candid video, depicting a compromise of communication between two worlds to preserve a cultural diversity of language. This 16-minute video, created by the media artist Jolanta Lapiak, took place in downtown of Calgary, Canada, in 2005.
This piece of work Speak in ASL inspects colonialism and hegemony of a speech language and culture over a sign-language culture. Lapiak came across a line that struck her in Mark Tully's book No Full Stops in India. In his book, Tully noted, "It has often been said that if you want to destroy a people, first destroy its language."
Lapiak reflected the following:
Whenever a hearing person talks in English to an eyeing person, some eyeing people responded that they don't hear. This behaviour indicates that they respond in submission to or fit their hearing world. It somehow evokes a lack of self-respect and identity of their culture and language. Instead, a growing number of eyeing people now respond in their own language Ameslan. Hearing people would most likely recognize a different language and they then feel being the Other or a foreigner rather than the way around.
References
Photographs and statement by Jolanta Lapiak at www.lapiak.com.