Zoe Milner
I Am Deaf
The mask reads, “I Am Deaf.” The phrase captures my everyday reality. I’m constantly repeating it to people in cafés, shops, and public spaces. I’ll gesture, write on my phone, or lipread what I can, and when people start speaking, I have to explain, again and again, that “I’m Deaf, I’m Deaf, I’m Deaf”. I repeat it a thousand times, “I’m Deaf.”
It’s a strong word. It’s my identity, my personality. A lot of people feel sorry for me when I tell them I’m Deaf, so it’s important to educate hearing people about the difficulties and barriers we face, but also about the strength in the word.
The natural light and trees symbolise calm and hope. Nature helps me. If I’m stressed by access barriers or thinking about past difficulties, going into nature helps me think more positively. This photo brings together pride, repetition, and reflection, a visual statement of who I am.
Be Nice to Deaf People
The mask is orange, and the text on it says, "Be Nice to Deaf People". It’s meant to show the communication barriers Deaf people experienced during the pandemic. The background is dark, black and white, which contrasts with the bright colour. That highlights the mental health impacts: the black-and-white background symbolises darkness and isolation, like depression, which many Deaf people felt during Covid.
Deaf people are very sensitive to colour, and they will immediately pick up on the meaning and understand it straight away because it’s visual. The developing colour represents cultural differences and distinct experiences compared to hearing people - where our worlds overlap, but our experiences are distinct. The piece is a metaphor, showing both the barriers we face and the emotional resilience within Deaf culture.
Where is the Interpreter?
The mask says, "Where is the Interpreter?" It’s positioned at eye level — dead-on, confrontational, right in your eyeline, as if to say, "Come on, where’s the interpreter?" The colour is red — anger, passion, struggle — more assertive than my other pieces. I created this after the #wherestheinterpreter campaign during Covid.
I also had a real experience at university. It was the induction for new students, and I walked in with everyone wearing masks. I had an interpreter booked and was looking all over for them, scanning every face, but I couldn’t find them because everyone was covered. Then I got a text message saying the interpreter had cancelled. I stood there, surrounded by people I couldn’t communicate with, trying to work out what was going on — completely isolated.