
Deaf Material
- Publisher
- Primary Information
- Year
- 2026
- ISBN
- 979-8-9910367-5-7
- Specifications
- Paperback
7.5 x 10 in
392 pages
More than 600 photographs and images
24 chapters
Edited by James Hoff
Managing editor Jules Spector
Designed by Bryce Wilner
Copy editor Allison Dubinsky
Deaf Material shows the artist Christine Sun Kim's vast archive of deaf imagery in mainstream culture. Personal yet expansive, it collects more than 600 vernacular photographs and images that Kim took in her daily life or gathered from books, online sources and the archives at Gallaudet University, in an effort to determine who and what defines deaf aesthetics. The archive spans pop culture imagery, memes, advertisements, disability signage, artworks and personal ephemera, and is laid out with a Tumblr-style look in 24 categories such as Airports, Celebrity ASL, Call and Wait, Deaf Power, Deaf/death, Parking Lots and Trash, with captions by the artist adding anecdotes, history and commentary on deaf experience since the late nineteenth century. The cover shows a box of index cards, each labelled Deaf Way, and the pages shown online include photographs of restroom doors with accessibility pictograms.