ArtLink Connects - Deaf Students
Kenya & USA
Students share art and stories with one another followed by a mobile art exhibit
About the Exchange
About the Exchange
ArtLink Connects worked with cArtie — Connecticut’s first and only nonprofit mobile art museum bus committed to bridging inequities in education and arts access across the state.
This unique two-part project tried to reach an underserved audience of both art creators and art viewers. It catered toward hearing-impaired and deaf students.
The onboard exhibit was designed for accessibility, specifically for this project utilizing American Sign Language (ASL) on the recorded exhibit intro and any student artist interview videos. In addition to the school visits, cARTie parked its bus at libraries and regional public events to widen community exposure to the exhibit and its inclusive message.
The Exchange
This special program supported by a NEA Challenge American grant, partnered deaf students at the Machokos School for the Deaf in Kenya and the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, CT with one another.
- The program combined an art exchange and live videoconferencing.
- The exchange theme was “Extraordinary”. Students captured in their pieces something particularly memorable from their lives.
- Accompanying their pieces, the classes recorded artist descriptions in their respective sign languages.
- Upon receiving the art from their peers, the classes treated each piece as a primary source, examining them for their cultural and artistic content.
- Two signed and interpreted live videoconferences were conducted during the exchange where student artists got to know one another and explored the stories behind their pieces.
The Exhibit
Art pieces were selected from the exchange for display on the cARTie Museum Bus. cARTie runs Connecticut’s first and only nonprofit mobile art museum bus committed to bridging inequities in education and arts access across the state.
- The pieces and student videos will now tour 50 underserved schools in CT serving more than 5000 PreK-2 students over the 2023-24 school year.
- Each school visit will include docent-led workshops that guide students to discover the ideas presented in the art, introduce the museum environment, build the foundations for critical and creative thinking, and raise awareness and appreciation of the (dis)ability community, especially those who are deaf and hard-of-hearing.
Special Thanks
We wish to thank The National Endowment for the Arts Challenge America Grant which supports this project.
