Avaliação: Historia del arte y la estética de las Américas: global y local – Deaf View/Image Art and Deaf Experience: Resistive and Affirmative Strategies in the Work of Betty Miller and Susan Dupor

Deaf View/Image Art, often denoted by the abbreviation “De’VIA,” is the visual-art expression of the Deaf experience, typically categorized under two main types, resistive and affirmative art. Elements of both of these putatively distinct tendencies can be seen in two works, “Bell School” by Betty Miller, and “Interesting Hamster” by Susan Dupor, both featuring a class photo depicting deaf children in mainstream school settings. Initially notable for their vivid, eye-catching colors, upon closer inspection, it becomes apparent these color schemes each evoke a jarring sense of the painful experience of forced assimilation. Pre-existing scholarship on De’VIA has often adopted a unilateral view according to which De’VIA images are mainly characterized by resistant visual strategies, a somewhat restricted outlook at odds with the range of imagery present in the works themselves, which clearly incorporate both resistive and affirmative elements. This study returns attention to these two fundamental concepts defining De’VIA art, affirmative and resistive. Miller’s “Bell School” and Dupor’s “Interesting Hamster” are re-examined from this dual perspective, considering both the representational content and formal qualities of the two works. Following this critical analysis, this paper argues that both Miller and Dupor employed the typically bright, optimistic palettes ostensibly characteristic of affirmative art in order to cast an ironic light on more resistive messaging, namely the forced assimilation of deaf children into mainstream education, engaging De’VIA’s central thematic preoccupation of Deaf experience through a blending of these conflicting elements.

• Resistive Art
• Affirmative Art
• De'VIA
• Betty Miller
• Susan Dupor