This spring, Wellcome Collection will present 1880 THAT, the first major London exhibition by Berlin-based artists Christine Sun Kim and Thomas Mader. Collaborating for over a decade, Kim and Mader use humour and word games as tools to reveal the complexities of communication and highlight the intersections between social interaction and exclusion. 1880 THAT will feature new commissions and recent works that explore sign language’s relationship to spoken language and the policies that govern linguistic suppression and freedom. The exhibition seeks to challenge a medical perspective of deafness as something that needs to be cured and will invite visitors to imagine new possibilities for understanding between signed and spoken languages.
1880 THAT will bring together drawings, film and sculptures that explore the idea of language as a home – an essential place of belonging – and what it means for your sense of safety when that language is under threat of extinction. The exhibition draws on the shift in Deaf education, driven by nineteenth century policymakers who mandated the use of oral education over sign language. The exhibition’s title refers to the Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf that was held in Milan in 1880, more commonly known as the ‘Milan conference’. The term ‘THAT’ is an emphatic expression in American Sign Language (ASL), which adds weight and significance to a preceding statement. The central topic debated at the Milan conference was the superiority of oral education over sign language that was common in Deaf schools at the time. Yet out of 164 delegates at the conference, only one participant was Deaf. A prominent figure at the conference was the Scottish-born American scientist and inventor Alexander Graham Bell. Bell was a strong advocate for lip reading and a system called Visible Speech, invented by his father, Melville Bell, that sought to teach Deaf people to speak with their voices.
The Milan conference ushered in a century of systemic suppression of teaching sign language, leading to stigmatisation, exclusion and diminished opportunities for Deaf people across multiple professions, including in education, writing, art and law. While the Milan conference frames the exhibition, 1880 THAT is not intended to be a history of this event; rather Kim and Mader’s artworks employ the directness of humour to draw attention to the ripple effects of the conference, and the consequences of those decisions that are still felt by sign language communities to this day.
The exhibition will open with a commemorative plaque made from bricks with ‘1880 THAT’ imprinted on to each side. These bricks have been created to address the absence of a commemorative plaque on the building where the conference took place, symbolically protesting the erasure of this pivotal moment in Deaf history. The brick motif, a recurring theme in the exhibition, pays homage to urban Victorian architecture while symbolising the foundations and building blocks of language, as well as the act of throwing bricks as a gesture of protest.
Notable works in the exhibition will include the newly commissioned ‘Look Up My Nose’ (2025), a large hanging fibreglass sculpture modelled on the noses of Melville and Alexander Graham Bell. Designed to release vibrations that visitors can feel, the piece mocks notions of superiority and critiques Bell’s role in the suppression of sign language. ‘NOT CROSS’ (2025), a large brick wall which addresses the disconnection between words and body language in spoken and signed languages, will illustrate the frustration of not being understood, whilst the large-scale kinetic installation
‘ATTENTION’ (2022) features two absurdly oversized inflatable arms that depict the ASL sign for attracting attention. Each arm points to historical and contemporary sites of policymaking to underscore the ongoing fight for recognition and inclusion by the Deaf community. Additionally, three new video works – ‘F on Eye’, ‘What’s Left’, and ‘Eye Spy’ (all 2025) – will explore themes of linguistic vulnerability, cultural resistance and shifting perspectives, offering visitors a deeper insight into the challenges of communicating, as well as the funny side of miscommunication and the right to be understood.
1880 THAT is a free exhibition at Wellcome Collection curated by Laurie Britton Newell. It will be open to the public from 17 April – 16 November 2025. All works in the exhibition will be accompanied by British Sign Language (BSL) interpretation.
An extensive public programme will accompany the exhibition later this summer. Finger Talk, a British Sign Language (BSL) film installation by artist and curator Cathy Mager will explore the shared language, heritage and cultural identity of the British Deaf community. Discussions, workshops and performances co-curated by Mager and a group of Deaf collaborators will challenge common perceptions of Deafness by shifting the narrative from “hearing loss” to “Deaf gain” and exploring different perspectives on contemporary BSL culture.