There were a couple of seemingly unrelated experiences that I had just
before I started on this journey in February that have coloured my search
for community. Both are exhibits hosted by the Children's Museum of Holon
(an outlying borough of Tel Aviv): Dialogue in the Dark, a pavilion that
simulates blindness for the seeing, and Invitation to Silence, a pavilion
that simulates deafness for the hearing.
In the first, Dialog BaChashechah, a group of 8-10 seeing people are given
walking sticks and led through a series of rooms that are so dark that
nothing at all is visible. Each room allows the participants to
experience a different facet of daily life for blind people: domestic
space, commercial space, outdoor public space, etc. And the guide that
directs them and coaches them through the pavilion is a certifiably blind
person who is already familiar and comfortable with the space layout.
Dialogue in the Dark wasn't invented in Israel, there are a number of DID
"franchises" all over the world. There are also a number of associated
"Dining in the Dark" restaurants where you order and eat in
pitch-blackness, and the waiters and cooks are all blind. But Hazmanah
LeSheket is an Israeli invention, and thus far it's the only one of its
kind. When you enter the pavilion, you put on a set of industrial-grade
earphones that shut out all noise, and a deaf person leads you through a
series of exercises using pantomime as the only means of communication.
To navigate space using only sound, smell, and touch was third-eye
opening. I realized how rich these sensory experiences can be, and it
gave me a newfound appreciation for being alive in the world. Being
forced to transmit and receive messages by physically signifying both gave
me a sense of peace and also engaged me kinesthetically, activating
atrophying connections between my brain and body. These were so
transformative for me that I began to brainstorm how I could incorporate
some aspects of these experiences into my future living situation.
I stayed for a few days in the outskirts of Washington, D.C. with my new
friends Jill and Jen. Jen is deaf, Jill hears and is also fluent in
American Sign Language (ASL). In fact, she works as a translator for deaf
people, and you may have even caught her on TV signing at the inauguration
of the Pope of Hope, Barack Obama. In conversation, Jill would translate
Jen for me, and me for Jen, and she spoke and signed simultaneously when
communicating with both of us. I really appreciate her patience, I
imagine that it's not easy at all to bring someone else on board in this
way.
Certainly, I want the physical spaces that I co-design to be accessible to
as many people as possible, including blind and deaf people, and that
means understanding their experiences of the world, so that I can take
their needs into account when shaping space. But equally as important,
I've come to believe that not only designers of spaces, but that *all*
users of spaces, as many people as possible, should sometimes "see" and
"hear" the world the way that non-seeing and non-hearing people do for
their own selfish reasons, to enhance and enrich their own multi-layered
lives.
It's really important for me to learn to speak, read and write Arabic if
I'm going to live in the Middle East and be a so-called civilian diplomat,
the only thing that's going to end this stupid cycle of violence. But on
the other hand, I am really drawn to these newfound (for me) kinetic-speak
worlds. To learn a new language, you usually have to uproot yourself and
move to another country, wholly immerse yourself in their culture. But
there are no blind boroughs, no deaf dominions to travel to. And because
they don't utilize the exact same sections of the brain, speaking and
signing, I believe they can co-exist with whatever else you've got going
on in your life, from natural building in North America to political
activism in Palestine.
I don't feel that I'm going to save the world in this way, for me it's not
about a culturally correct prefigurative politic. It just feels really
good in my roots to really want something again, want it enough, be driven
to go out and make it manifest, and not necessarily care about the
consequences. I don't know if I've got what it takes to co-create a new
space that is everything I want it to be in the world, a
rapidly-rewilding-rhizome-come-black-bloc-army-barracks. But maybe I
could live communally with some sweet people who deeply dance their
thoughts and feelings from the heart. I guess that's what my own heart
really needs right now.
www.youtube.com/user/tiffanythill
