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Sandra:

Hello everybody, hello Elisa. I'm so happy to be with you here again today, to talk about your exhibition that you will do for the project and Deaf Museums.
Hello to you and thank you. We are here and working.

So in the last interview, you told us your original plan for your exhibition, but since you had the idea in the first place until now, have there actually been any changes in your plans?

Elisa:

We are still developing our project. Probably we have focused on the name
of one photographer and we are discussing with him the possible options in terms of the best team. Probably it will be something related to sign language. And we have almost decided the two museums involved in the project. And also the timesheet of our programme in order to involve also young photographers in order to create a larger exhibition.

We have decided also uh the time of the opening which would be in spring  2022.

And it would be useful for involving both local peoples but lasting through the summer also some tourists.
Why not? So these are the main steps we have.

Sandra:

So you already now mentioned local people and tourists. Who do you think will be your main target group? Who do you think will be your visitors?

Elisa

As I said, we still have to work on our experience with deaf people. So visitors coming from abroad, from Italy and local communities are our main usual targets to be reached quite easily for us together with museum professionals. We hope they are a target too in order to have a an education in working for accessible products. But another challenge for us is intercepting and interacting with Deaf people in our territory, which is a quite small. I mean it's a province, but made of many villages spread in the countryside sometimes. So almost all Deaf people who are living in the centre are in contact with one of our partners, the Mason Perkins Deafness Fund which probably be our colleague in order to reach them and help us to translate all the contents in sign languages too with videos and other materials so not only photographs but also other supports. We'd like also to involve Italian associations working with Deaf people and working with other associations in the territory with Deaf families and
of course asking them to give the contribution to enlarge this Deaf heritage we'd like to exhibit.
That sounds like a great plan. I'm wondering: what do you want the visitors to take away with them from the exhibition? Is there anything that they should learn and know after they get out of the exhibition?
I'm used to thinking that our visitors would be Deaf and not-deaf at the same time so I'd like to imagine an exhibition creating an interaction between the two in the museum which should be a better space providing the good situation for such dialogue and interaction. So I would like that the photographs that we are going to exhibit would create some questions especially in not-deaf people for creating a contact with them and on the same time deaf visitors could recognize a personal interpretation, a personal link with the objects in the history and the stories that our museums are carrying with them inside the displays or just on the walls. So inspire a sense of creativity I would say also between their heritage and the other objects coming from our traditional material tradition.

Sandra:

So it sounds like you plan to involve a lot of outside parties as well so actually up till now have you already contacted anybody, maybe from the Deaf community, maybe other museums professional and what do they think about your exhibition? Did they give you any feedback?

Elisa:

So we have started to speak with museum professionals, especially of the museum included in the project and we still have to work on a dialogue with Deaf Associations that are local here and through the national territory. But at the moment museum professionals give us a very strong feedback proving their interest in the process and not only in the project. While we are going to contact some photograph associations too for working on another possible target which is the photograph lovers and professionals too so creating again and some possible new interaction..

Sandra:

Thank you so much if you said it sounds also interesting. I'm so excited to see how your exhibition will be in the end. Is there anything else you would like to add now?

Elisa;

But we need your help to build up something significant for the people and we really trust in all your suggestions to make our way as better as possible
It's a pleasure for us. We thank so thank you so much for your time and for talking to us and see you next time.
See you then, thank you.

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