Portrait of Rose Ayling Ellis

Stephen Iliffe’s ground-breaking photo essay for the Wellcome Collection celebrates both the expressive power and the quieter nuance of British Sign Language.

“As a deaf photographer, I’m fascinated by the challenge of turning the physicality of a language as agile and fluid as British Sign Language (BSL) into a frozen moment in time. A moment where the viewer can linger and gaze,” says Stephen.

“I ask myself how can I use one visual language, photography, to capture the essence of another, BSL?”

“So, I invited the actress Rose Ayling-Ellis into the portrait studio, not to pose but to just be her natural self and chat with me in sign language while I pressed my camera shutter at periodic intervals.”

“Through this process, I was able to make hundreds of photos to select from and compile a photo essay that captures the beauty of sign language’s facial expressions, handshapes and movements.”

“I know I’m biased but I believe sign is the world’s most beautiful and expressive language!” laughs Rose. “People assume that communication means listening and speaking, but BSL shows it is much more than just words.”

“Being on ‘Strictly’ has created huge public interest in British Sign Language. But sign isn’t new – it’s been around for centuries. It just hasn’t had the same recognition as other languages – like Welsh or Gaelic.”

And yet for many deaf children, the path to learning BSL is rarely a straightforward one.

“When I was diagnosed as deaf at 18 months, my parents were told if I learned to sign first, I would never learn to speak. I wasn’t taught BSL at school, I learnt it at home from my Mum and used it with some of my classmates. Lipreading is such hard work. It’s frustrating and tiring, and only three words out of every ten have a clear lip-shape meaning that I miss out on so much information.

“It was only as a teenager, when I got involved with film and theatre projects, that I was supported to truly own my deaf identity and express myself in sign language.

“That’s why I now write children’s picture books with BSL signs, so it becomes part of their early years reading habits. I’m also supporting the campaign for free BSL lessons for parents of deaf children. It’s crazy that they often have to wait years to learn it and can then have to pay hundreds or thousands of pounds.”

"Photography was invented in the 1830s, just as the modern deaf community began to emerge," adds Stephen. "And yet two centuries later, deaf people are still almost invisible in the art photography canon – museums and galleries, books and journals, archives and collections.”

“Just as Rose pushes back the boundaries and creates spaces for other deaf artists to follow through, these sign language portraits are changing the narrative.”

These portraits were commissioned by the Wellcome Collection for a photo essay: Sign Language Stories.