Falling On Deaf Ears
Location: West Hollywood, CA, United States
Completion date: 2023
Project Team
Directors of Artistic Sign Language (DASL)
Alexandia Wailes, Monique “MoMo” Holt, Zavier Sabio, John McGinty, Janis Cole
Client
City of West Hollywood
Public Art Administration
Arts Division, City of West Hollywood
Fabrication/Installation
Primary Color
Overview
American Sign Language: “Imagine in a forest that a tree falls, vibrates/shakes the earth. Did you not notice?” (English, roughly translated) / Text written on opposite side: “What if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it…”
Re-imagining the ‘public memorial’, the artwork is the artist’s reflection on the trauma and grief we’ve experienced over the last few years; personal and collective, local and global, through the pandemic, struggles for democracy, climate change, and justice inequality. Through the visual poetry of ASL, it is a reminder or call to ‘pause and witness’… and to reconsider the rich complexity of how we communicate and what is understood. The title, Falling On Deaf Ears, re-examines and attempts to transform our use of the common derogatory expression.
City of West Hollywood “Art On The Outside” program, West Hollywood’s City Council Chambers Lobby, 9/11/2023-1/10/2024 (Digitally printed corrugated board / 6′ x 22′ x 2′)
Goals
The artwork’s inventive use of ASL and hearing/deaf collaboration is an exceptional example of cross-cultural creative exchange. The five ASL performers are all Directors of Artistic Sign Language. A DASL is a Deaf person with a strong background in theater who specializes in overseeing the accuracy and coherency of sign language in a theatrical production on stage or film. The artist relied on their expertise to develop this artwork. The collaborative process over many months to refine the ASL message is at the heart of this project. Beyond a literal translation of the familiar English phrase to ASL, it was imperative to provide a message that was linguistically clear and actually relevant to the Deaf community.
Process
In addition to hand gestures, sign language relies on a combination of body position, facial expression and movement to convey meaning. The artist/DASL team developed several visual techniques to accurately, yet poetically distill the ASL message: dual pleated surfaces create a simple animation, group of figures perform different stages of one sign, and superimposed limbs convey repetitive or complex movement. Viewers experience the full-bodied expression of ASL through larger-than-life figures and in these dynamic ways in which physical movement comes alive through static form. Despite the artwork’s enormous scale and 24/7 public accessibility, the certainty of its communication is intentionally undermined and complicated. The pleated surfaces prevent the complete set of images to be seen all at once, one’s mirror image and surroundings are reflected in the glass windows, and questions arise from the differences between the ASL message and English translation. What appears as a self-defeating strategy is actually intended to slow down one’s attention. The graphic novel sequencing and theatrical use of ASL create a new hybrid form of communication. Physically exploring the pleated surfaces, viewers are invited to piece together a puzzle and its meaning.
Additional Information
The intrinsic qualities of corrugated board allowed the artwork to be lightweight, rigid, quickly produced and easily installed. More importantly, it made it feasible to create a visually impactful installation at a monumental scale within budget. The artist who is neither deaf nor conversant in ASL used a wide array of methods to communicate with his collaborators both online and for in-person photo sessions: email, video conferencing, text chat, audio/text translation app, FaceTime, text-to-voice phone relay, and sign language interpreter. Surprisingly, some West Hollywood constituents saw the artwork’s placement in the City Council Chambers Lobby as a defiant rallying call for their representatives to hear the community’s concerns.
The project received a Social + Climate Merit award from CODAworx in its 2025 CODAawards.
