Christine Sun Kim’s Deaf Material asks readers to look closely at images of deaf life—and at the assumptions those images carry. The book gathers more than 600 images across nearly 400 pages, from everyday signs and symbols to newspaper clippings, screenshots and photographs. In Harper’s BAZAAR’s interview with Kim, she describes the collection as an American perspective on deafness, shaped by her experience and years of gathering material.
Published by Primary Information in September, the book is arranged in 24 chapters. Kim’s captions tell the stories behind images and explain what made her keep looking. Some concern everyday frustrations, including captions that display test text instead of dialogue; others lead to questions about art, history and deaf culture.
Look Beyond the Symbol
One chapter, “Celebrity ASL,” collects images of public figures—including Pedro Pascal, the pope, Vanessa Hudgens and Hillary Clinton—making the American Sign Language sign for “I love you.” Kim is ambivalent about the phrase, which she describes as tender, being used as an all-purpose symbol of deafness. In “Deaf Power,” by contrast, she takes pleasure in the continued life of a deaf-pride symbol she knew as a teenager.
The contrast is a useful guide to the book: a visible gesture can carry different meanings depending on its context and who explains it. Kim’s own captions provide that context rather than leaving the images to speak for themselves.
Her opening chapter, “Ability,” states the framework: “The issue is not a lack within us disabled people, but that systems are not designed for us, which turns those systems into barriers.” The examples that follow range from signs that complicate ordinary outings to captions that show test text instead of dialogue. These details invite readers to notice whether communication is actually available, not just whether an accessibility symbol or feature appears.
Kim has also experienced the difference between being included in an event and being visible to its audience. In 2020, she signed the national anthem and “America the Beautiful” at Super Bowl LIV; the television broadcast showed little of her performance. She later addressed the omission in a New York Times essay.
A Specific Perspective, Not a Universal One
Kim calls Deaf Material “an American perspective on deafness.” She grew up in California with a deaf sister, deaf friends and hearing parents who signed, and credits the support and interpreting services she had with helping make her education possible. She says moving to Berlin in 2013 gave her distance from the American deaf experience, though she still has to prove annually that she is deaf to receive benefits including discounted transit.
The book also reflects Kim’s concern about how deaf material is preserved and circulated. She says that, while searching collections such as the Library of Congress, she noticed detailed cataloguing of digitized books and relatively little comparable attention to deaf material. She has spent years collecting images and wants more of that material to be available online, while expressing concern about algorithms shaping what people see.
A practical way into the book is to pause over an image and read Kim’s caption before deciding what it means. Which details change your understanding of access, representation or deaf culture?
Source image: Harper's BAZAAR.