In Christine Sun Kim’s ‘Friends and Strangers’ 1 she discusses as a member of the non-hearing community, consistently feeling oppressed within the hearing community, she notes that she doesn’t get to be a mysterious artist, her work always has to be accompanied with a explanation evidenced in her use of collaboration (interpreters etc). Her work in Manchester, Captioning the City 2 got me thinking about the general use of closed captions, in this interview 3 with Pop Magazine she notes how CC’s are ok at translating dialogue but terrible when it comes to anything else; i.e music. It often just says [music] and as she states – the more description the better.
I immediately thought about Justina Miles’ viral ASL rendition of Rihanna’s super bowl performance 4 in 2023 (who isn’t even named in the caption of this YouTube video by NFL) and how Miles’ use of her body movement whilst signing the music was a revelation, she ‘memorised not just the lyrics but also the beats so she could sign the lyrics and move to the beat’ physically showing the beat with her movement. She rehearsed with the team for a week before the performance, stating her aim was to ‘match Rihanna’s power’, ‘gunning for the recognition our community (non-hearing community) deserves’. She ends her interview with British Vogue with ‘when the public hears Deaf they think “incapable”. ‘The questions they ask can be so ridiculous: “How do you read? How do you drive?” My hope was to pop off hard enough for people to see, “Okay, Deaf people are literally just like us!” Growing up, the Deaf people I saw on screen would always be white, and me, being my authentic Black girl self on screen, needs to be normalised.’ 5
Miles notes how she faces challenges from an intersectional level, both for her deafness and her race, which is poignantly mirrored and described by Ade Adepitan in Disability and Race.6 He talks openly about the impact hundreds of years of oppression faced as a black person manifesting itself in current day with in built and institutional racism, and asks the question of ‘do we actually want to tackle inequality?’ – listing governmental conversations of schemes, financing, which have been repeatedly scrapped, shifted, made little to no impact, and focuses on the fact that what makes people disabled isn’t their ‘disability’ but societies systemic discrimination, and uses the growth and impact of the Paralympic games as a direct example of how investment in adequate equipment, facilities, training shows that truly the sky is the limit.
Listening and watching these examples has made me consider how not inclusive so many of my technical workshops are, in the social model of disability at UAL7, it states that disabled people are disabled by barriers (echoing the words of Christine Sun Kim and Ade Adepitan), a world who doesn’t take them into account. I would say photographic practice, in general, isn’t inclusive of non-hearing, non-seeing people and people with limited mobility (not to take away the onus on myself as an individual) – it feels like UAL’s approach has been on an individual basis when required (which since my 5 years of working at LCC has been a handful of occasions) and not necessarily bothered in creating ‘buildings, courses and attitudes with EVERYONE in mind’ – as stated in their ‘model’. Are these ‘handful’ of instances a direct result of this non-inclusiveness? Why would a person with specific societal challenges and discriminations put more onto themselves, when the space feels impossible for them to enter and most importantly thrive. It’s about a sense of belonging – and an aim to make people not feel actively excluded from our spaces. During feedback from my tutor review of practice as part of the TPP unit, Carys suggested we make written resources to refer back to for some of our inductions – we’ve been working on a booklet for the colour darkroom including diagrams, a glossary, and a series of note pages at the back in hope that it’s something all students can have with them when they return to the space, this small act, will hopefully have a big impact with broad implications for all.
- Christine Sun Kim in “Friends and Strangers” – Season 11 | Art 21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NpRaEDlLsI&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fmoodle.arts.ac.uk%2F&source_ve_path=MjM4NTE [Accessed Online 24th April 2025] ↩︎
- Captioning the City – Christine Sun Kim, Factory International https://factoryinternational.org/about/press/press-media-library/MIF21-media-library/captioning-the-city-christine-sun-kim/ [Accessed Online 24th April 2025] ↩︎
- Artist Christine Sun Kim Rewrites Closed Captions | Pop-Up Magazine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfe479qL8hg [Accessed Online 24th April 2025] ↩︎
- ASL Rendition of 2023 Apple Music Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show by Rihanna https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOcqPD9TC-o [Accessed Online 24th April 2025] ↩︎
- “I Wanted To Match Rihanna’s Power”: ASL Performer Justina Miles On Going Viral At The Super Bowl, British Vogue May 2023 https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/justina-miles-british-vogue-interview (Accessed Online 25th April 2025) ↩︎
- Ade Adepitan gives amazing explanation of systemic racism – Paralympics GB [Accessed Online 24th April 2025] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAsxndpgagU ↩︎
- The Social Model of Disability at UAL [accessed online 25th April 2025] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNdnjmcrzgw ↩︎
Hi Cora,
Thank you for sharing your reflection. I really enjoyed reading it, particularly how you connected the work of Christine Sun Kim and Justina Miles. The point about access tools, like captions, is so true; they often oversimplify rather than enhance meaning, condensing complex sounds into basic descriptors like “music” or “applause,” which can overlook the emotional and sensory richness they convey.
I wasn’t familiar with Justina Miles, so I took the opportunity to read the interview you linked. I found her insights on using her whole body to embody the beat and rhythm of the music quite striking. It served as a reminder that access and expression can take multiple forms. The example she shared about her mum not being able to communicate with emergency services during a car crash was also particularly impactful, highlighting how inaccessibility can affect basic safety and autonomy in critical situations.
As someone working in a technical teaching role at UAL, I found your comments on inclusivity particularly relevant. Like you, I also question how inclusive our workshops and learning environments truly are. As you noted, these spaces often aren’t built with a range of bodies, experiences, or needs in mind, and we can’t rely on reactive systems or individual goodwill alone to compensate. Your reflection also confirms my belief that meaningful inclusion needs a more systemic, embedded approach, one that shifts how we understand and design for belonging in the first place.
Hi Ece,
Thank you so much for your comment – I’m glad you enjoyed it and felt like the references to Justina Miles were poignant, I thought her interview was insightful and as you say, impactful. We share the same thoughts and concerns re: inclusivity in technical spaces, showing how this isn’t a ‘departmental’ issue but UAL wide. It’s really hard to reference the videos and feel as if even the small changes/adjustments made to help us be more inclusive even scratch the surface, but anything that is done to help people feel seen and welcome is a positive. I keep thinking back to comments mentioned in the group tutorial I attended where Carys noted that able-bodied people tend to forget and disregard that if we just made things, spaces, courses accessible for disabled people they will also be accessible for everyone, you don’t miss anyone out.