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Meeting outdoors became second nature for most of us over this long, hot summer, but Amanprit Arnold doesn’t get the luxury of choice. She’s sitting at a terrace table when we meet at a cafe because she’s a member of the Deaf community (Deaf with a capital D denotes membership of a unique cultural and linguistic minority).
“Nowhere in London is specifically designed for me,” says Arnold, who was born deaf and used hearing aids before getting cochlear implants at 21. “Inside a cafe, the acoustics can be so bad. It’s much easier for me to hear out here.”
Despite there being 18 million people with hearing issues in the UK, deaf people can often be made to feel like outsiders (even when they’re not sitting outside). Mainstream representation has grown thanks to actor Rose Ayling-Ellis lifting the glitterball trophy on Strictly Come Dancing in 2021 and Fury on the Gladiators reboot. Critically acclaimed films such as Sound of Metal and Coda – which won the best picture Oscar in 2022 – showcased the talents of deaf actors and writers, and the mesmerising skills of sign language interpreters at rap performances regularly go viral. But this has not led to a dedicated centre for the Deaf arts anywhere in the UK.
Arnold wants to change that. She has started the DeafCity Hub campaign to create or adapt a building using deaf-friendly architectural guidelines called DeafSpace principles to provide, at last, a co-working and cultural space for her community.
While there are cafes and clubs that bring deaf people together socially around the UK, Arnold sees the DeafCity Hub as a national centre as well as a meeting place. This month, the project has landed a year-long “meanwhile” space (a building awaiting redevelopment) through a partnership with Westminster city council and the Oxford Street Development Corporation, which gives her the chance to prove a place like this is needed.
“There is greater visibility of deaf people in the media,” says Arnold, “but when it comes to property and place-making for them, there’s nothing. We have a really strong cultural identity element and we need somewhere to celebrate that, somewhere made for us.”
Arnold’s career is in urban planning and strategy, but there’s activism in her background, too. (“In my family, that’s what we do,” she says with a smile.) Her father was race relations director for Birmingham city council in the 1990s and her grandfather was a trade unionist and antiracism campaigner. Arnold’s design agency, Disability Urbanism, specialises in accessibility, helping city planners and real estate developers create welcoming environments for people with disabilities.
She sees DeafCity Hub as a revival of a 1986 plan for an International Deaf Cultural Centre in London that fizzled out. The 1980s were a heady time for activists, especially in the US, where there were Deaf civil rights protests, the first Oscar for a deaf actor (Marlee Matlin for 1986’s Children of a Lesser God) and the establishment of Gallaudet University, specifically for deaf people, and the appointment of the university’s first deaf president.
In the UK, the BBC launched See Hear, a current affairs programme for deaf people, and TV subtitle provision improved. The British Sign Language Act only received royal assent in 2022, legally recognising BSL as a British language of England, Scotland and Wales, and you still can’t take a GCSE in it (the expected launch date for this qualification is 2028).
“Most communities have their own spaces,” says Arnold. “I know that if I go to Soho I’ll be in an LGBTQ+ community space, for example. I think creating DeafCity Hub as a deaf-owned and deaf-led arts space would assert that our culture is also rich.”
Being able to access spoken language culture would also be on the DeafCity Hub agenda, as signers often find this difficult. “Theatres and cinemas will have an accessibility page on their websites, but performances with interpreters are rare,” Arnold continues. “You have to go to one specific show – and that’s normally set for noon on a Tuesday when most of us are at work.”
Arnold has the 1980s material for the International Deaf Cultural Centre, from plans and optimistic posters to the original architect’s blueprints – which feature a Deaf history archive, a theatre and exhibition space, a bar, a quiet room and even a hostel. Looking through them, she recalls a quote that’s connected to the formation of Gallaudet University and has become a mantra for many activists: “We travel the world to learn about cultures and people. We go into their country to visit them. We now have a country.”
The International Deaf Cultural Centre plans are not designed to the DeafSpace guidelines – this is the goal for DeafCity Hub. “Sign language is not just spoken word translated into hands: it’s a rich, spatial language rooted in visual geography, 3D space and facial syntax,” says Arnold. It needs space.
DeafSpace principles include features such as wide corridors and staircases that allow people to walk abreast while talking in BSL; natural light and soft colours to guard against eye strain; strategic use of glass and mirrors to improve sightlines; and rooms that accommodate circular seating so large groups can easily see each other’s hands and faces as they sign. If you’ve ever been to the London College of Fashion’s East Bank campus, you’ll have experienced the pleasant, spacious feel of DeafSpace, as it’s one of the few public buildings designed to these ideals.
Arnold would also like Deaf sector charities to have a home at DeafCity Hub, using boardrooms without rectangular tables, in part to demonstrate how simple changes can make a big difference to her community. “Being in an environment that’s built for you is so important. I went to deaf school as a teenager and that meant I had a wonderful secondary school experience. I was opened up to Deaf culture and I want to be able to share what that was like with other deaf people.”
Arnold’s positive experience is harder for deaf kids to access today. There are only 22 deaf schools in the UK, down from 75 in the early 1980s. This is partly due to funding cuts and local government policy, but it’s also due to the uptake of cochlear implants, electrical devices that relay sound to the brain, enabling speech development. Arnold feels that the possibility of medical eradication makes it even more important to preserve Deaf culture.
“Deaf Gain is a celebrated term in our community, where we frame ourselves as contributors to society. People think it’s important to protect endangered ecosystems and oral dialects, so why would we treat a thriving visual culture and spatial language as something to be eliminated?”
Arnold is delighted to have her meanwhile space, but for DeafCity Hub to secure a permanent home, they’ll need funding and a developer partner. If all goes well, she’d like the London space to act as a pilot for an international network of hubs – and for that to work she needs investment. “We need to design and shape accessibility and inclusivity from the start. A meanwhile space won’t be perfect, but it will act as an incubator to develop this idea further.”
She has a lot to prove in the next 12 months but she’s ready for it. She gathers her plans and her blueprints from the cafe table, plans for somewhere she can finally call her own.
