‘Ka mua, ka muri’ is a whakataukī (cultural proverb) that many will know and means ‘walking backwards into the future’ – the idea we should look to the past to learn how we move into the future. The Aotearoa New Zealand Deaf community has experienced audism and oppression (especially in the education area), but has also celebrated our identity, our language and our spirit. The SignDNA archive acknowledges past Deaf people, community leaders and allies, their struggles and advocacy. Their efforts gave birth to our unique language, NZSL, and nurtured it through difficult times. If not for their commitment and vision, we would not be the community we are today. We remember you. The archive aims to provide a cultural compass for the future. To current Deaf leaders fighting for a better tomorrow, you have our support. To emerging and future Deaf leaders, we believe in you.
Our Vision
SignDNA (an abbreviation of Sign Language Deaf National Archive) is intended first and foremost as a taonga (treasure) for the Aotearoa New Zealand Deaf community. SignDNA is a place to celebrate who we are, see how far we have come despite great odds, and to remember those that have helped and been a part of this journey.
SignDNA is an unique archive of national importance, with materials and artefacts of cultural and historical significance to the Deaf community of Aotearoa New Zealand. Our vision is for SignDNA to be useful as a central online repository of Deaf history, values and experience. For it to be a place to go to share and discover our culture and its origins, and to enable appreciation for the wonderful achievements as well as the decades of work and struggle of the Deaf community in Aotearoa New Zealand. We aim to inform, educate, entertain and inspire.
We hope that the archive is used and updated regularly by people who see it as belonging to them, and reflecting their history and identity. We hope the archive discovers a life of its own through those that use it. We also hope SignDNA becomes a valuable tool for learning about Aotearoa New Zealand Deaf history and the origins of NZSL. We encourage schools to consider its use in teaching Deaf history and culture. Adults intending to work or otherwise be a part of the Deaf community could benefit from studying its history in this way.
Our Story
The concept for SignDNA came while watching old home movies on a kitchen table. We were struck by how powerful it was to see films (old and scratchy!) showing people signing. It somehow gave another dimension to NZSL; the dimension of time. Like other signed languages, NZSL has no written form. While there have been some wonderful histories written in English about the Deaf community (many of which have been used to inform this archive), content in NZSL was missing from Deaf history. Given that so much about Deaf culture is reflected and expressed in sign language, this also meant that cultural history was missing.
A conversation one day with Owen Gibbons (who appears in these videos probably more than any other individual!) revealed that he had several old films in a box stored at home. He agreed to let us get them digitised to see what was on them. When we received them it was soon obvious that time had not been kind to the films and they were sticky and smelled strongly of vinegar – a sure sign of substrate decay. While we researched how to save the film’s contents, it occurred to us that there must be hundreds of similar films out there, all in danger of suffering the same fate. Our Deaf cultural history was literally dissolving in front of our eyes and nothing was being done to preserve it.
This set in motion the development of a project to collect, digitise and preserve these filmed histories. The call went out to donate old films, and slowly but surely the films started arriving. Some had been well preserved, many had not. With the support of Diversityworks Trust (led by Philip Patson), and a successful first fundraising campaign on PledgeMe we raised enough money to start digitising the worst affected by ageing. The PledgeMe success and donations of films also demonstrated community support for the project, which helped with further grants from charitable funding bodies.
From there began the long slow process of assessment, logging, digitising, editing, tagging, categorising and uploading of each selected film. It is thanks to many volunteers, the steering group, and work by the team at Deafradio that the archive was launched on 16 May 2015.
Our Future
SignDNA has evolved since then to include archival items beyond purely film and video. While both are invaluable as samples of actual culture and language use in the Deaf community, and are decaying rapidly, there are also documents, minutes, newspaper articles, photographs, slides, individual stories, clothing, trophies and much more that require archival attention. We have found that many community members have been keen to ensure their items were not forgotten, but instead valued, preserved and shared; to have a ‘home’.
SignDNA is still under construction. There are a number of improvements, additions and interactive elements ready for development. Some of these can be achieved with will and volunteerism alone, but some will rely on securing funding to achieve. We encourage you to support our efforts to maintain and develop this archive, and welcome your contribution of time, material, knowledge, resources and ideas! SignDNA is your Deaf culture archive and we would love to work with you to develop and maintain it.
The SignDNA archive is a long-term project, one that needs to exist permanently. NZSL is still officially an endangered language and we all need to play our part in ensuring it survives and thrives. The journey is ongoing. We hope you enjoy exploring and rediscovering our history together.