Claire Bridge and Chelle Destefano, Deaf storytellers share knowledge and challenge audism in 'What I Wish I'd Told You', University of Melbourne, VCA-MCM
By Sarah Hall
There are stories that can only be told in Auslan.
image: Claire Bridge and Chelle Destefano, What I Wish I'd Told You, with Ayah Wehbe and Walter Kadiki, multi channel video projections with audio and animated captions, Footscray Community Arts, installation view 2022, photo by Mike Wilkins
Artists Chelle Destefano and Claire Bridge have created a home for some of them in What I Wish I’d Told You, an immersive show of large-scale video projections centring Deaf voices, identity, language and culture, which is now open at the Footscray Community Arts Centre. The videos feature over seventy Deaf Auslan contributors and hearing allies from across the continent (and internationally) responding to an open callout to the prompt “What I wish I’d told you”.
Chelle is a multi-disciplinary Deaf artist whose work explores Deaf identity, history and culture. She met Claire, a hearing artist, former Auslan interpreter and grandchild of Deaf adults, while studying a Master of Contemporary Art at the VCA in 2020. They developed this exhibition together over the last two years.
“I'm hoping the exhibition helps Deaf members of the community to engage with their own story, culture and language, and the history of oppression and audism we’ve had to experience,” said Chelle when we met together with Claire and an interpreter on Zoom last week.