English was never formally designated as the national language until now — the United States never had an official language before President Donald Trump’s executive order on March 1. Language is deeply tied to communication, and this decision directly discriminates against individuals who do not speak English — or any other language at all, such as those who use American Sign Language.
Christine Sun Kim’s multimedia exhibition “All Day All Night” at the Whitney Museum of American Art communicates the Deaf experience through art. Originally from Orange County, California and currently based in Berlin, Kim is an American sound artist and activist whose work explores the social dimensions of sound through drawing, performance and video.
Deaf from birth, ASL is Kim’s first language and plays a central role in her artistic practice, with her newest exhibition advocating for Deaf inclusion. The multimedia artworks include Kim’s drawings, video installations and immersive auditory experiences, encouraging viewers to reflect on their place within our hearing-dominant world.
The eighth floor of the Whitney hosts the majority of the exhibition, where a striking mural titled “Ghost(ed) Notes” spans across the walls, guiding the viewer’s gaze through the entire space. The mural features the familiar lines of a music staff — horizontal lines with spaces between them that represent the pitch of different notes.
However, Kim’s interpretation changed them. The lines curve unevenly, and smudges shadow their structure. The musical notes, rather than aligning with the lines, float freely above or below them, reflecting how Deaf individuals are often left feeling ignored by society through a lack of accessibility, such as inadequate translations and captioning.
Among the black and white pieces, a six-part series of charcoal on paper drawings titled, “Degrees of Deaf Rage” drew a large crowd. Much like her use of the music staff to foster familiarity, Kim uses the degrees of an angle to reframe her anger. Kim outlines various uncomfortable and frustrating situations Deaf people are consistently confronted with and the amount of rage each instills. As the angle approaches 360 degrees, both the intensity of the rage and the sense of misunderstanding grow. Each drawing features six angles getting progressively wider, accompanied by captions that describe situations of escalating frustration and miscommunication.
For example, a drawing in the series titled “Degrees of Deaf Rage within Educational Settings” depicts intense frustration, with one angle of “Acute Rage” showing a caption that reads, “cannot enroll in the classes we want because only the most popular classes among Deaf students get interpreters.”
A 360-degree of “Full on Rage” accompanies the caption, “The Milan Conference of 1880,” alluding to a pivotal event in the history of Deaf education where a majority of educators voted to adopt oralism, promoting speech and lip-reading over sign language in schools for the Deaf.
Continuing through the exhibition, visitors encounter a vibrant bench with seven sets of headphones, each playing a different sound, titled “One Week of Lullabies for Roux.” As viewers take turns trying on the headphones, they experience a range of auditory reactions, from soothing ambient noises to jarring, intrusive sounds like loud snoring.
Concerned with balancing sign language and spoken language as a new mother, Kim explored the concept of a “sound diet” to create a healthy auditory environment for her daughter. In a collaboration with seven artist friends, Kim developed low-frequency ambient sounds, which were paired with a specific color scheme for the bench. This color scheme was structured to represent the passage of time across a week, where each cushion represents a different day. The project, though not made up of traditional lullabies, symbolizes Kim’s control and agency as a Deaf mother in choosing what her child would hear. The work is meant to engage the viewer not only through auditory experiences, but also through a visual cue that represents the passage of time and cycles.
“All Day All Night” challenges viewers to engage deeply with each piece, requiring not just visual observation but their broader senses. Kim seamlessly incorporates her personal experience, making the experience even more impactful. To fully grasp Kim’s work, viewers must reflect on their own experiences and reframe their auditory-centric world.
“All Day All Night” runs through July 6 at the Whitney and admission is free for NYU students.
Contact Maya Santiago at [email protected].