We've been waiting to get a show of our own for such a long time, says Heroda Berhane, one half of the deaf identical twin presenting duo, Hermon and Heroda. People have never seen our culture, our identity, the way we discuss the things. So it's a dating show, yes, but it's not just about dating; it's also revealing our identity and our culture, and that has never been seen before.
I've spent my life determined to be one of a kind perhaps because I'm a twin. During our birth, my younger-by-two-minutes brother's umbilical cord wrapped around my neck. It cut off my air supply, which left me deaf, while his hearing was unimpaired. That's sibling rivalry for you. I use hearing aids and am a strong lip reader, as well as being fluent in British Sign Language. When I take my aids out to sleep,
Far from the Tree, Andrew Solomon's brilliant nonfiction book about parenting children different from oneself, offers the useful distinction between vertical and horizontal identities. Vertical identities are inherited a family name, an ethnicity, or a nationality; horizontal identities are qualities that define us which parents may have nothing to do with, such as the kinship people with autism feel with one another, or being gay or deaf.
Hunter emphasizes the importance of a Deaf-led organization in presenting the work of Deaf artists. Without proper access, many Deaf artists struggle to communicate their vision effectively.
"The 1880 THAT exhibition confronts the damaging impacts of the Milan Conference on Deaf education, highlighting ongoing stigma in languages across Deaf and hearing cultures."