An Afternoon with Jessica Kirkness and Fiona Murphy

This event will be AUSLAN interpreted.

'If I were to tell you our story in sign language—the story of my grandparents and me—I'd begin with a single finger touching my chest.'

For most of her life Jessica Kirkness has traversed the boundary between deaf and hearing cultures, sometimes sitting on the periphery, and other times acting as a bridge between worlds.

The House With All the Lights On tells the story of her grandparents' experience of growing up in a hearing world—one where sign language was banned for much of the twentieth century—and, weaving in her own experience as a hearing child being raised in a family that often struggled to navigate their elders' disability, Jessica provides an insightful account of her family's history and the broader history of deafness in Australia and the UK. This journey takes her to sign language classes, to the workplaces of research audiologists, an…