An excerpt from the series Heritage in Our Hands shows how historic monuments can be woven into the mundane rhythms of our lives.

Signing in Auslan, senior Deaf interviewee Alan Fairweather warmly recalls his youthful days from the 1930s. Growing up in Sydney's waterfront suburb of Drummoyne, his regular ferry rides to the Deaf Club made Fairweather a witness to the city's grandest construction project: the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This iconic landmark is presented casually, equal in importance to his happy memories of Friday nights at the Deaf Club, a vibrant hub where members of New South Wales' Deaf Community ate and socialised together.

Heritage in Our Hands was created in 1988 by the Adult Education Centre for Deaf and Hearing Impaired Persons Inc. (later the Deaf Education Network, which merged with the Deaf Society of NSW in 2007). The video series featured interviews with senior Deaf people in NSW, aiming to ensure cultural and linguistic heritage was preserved for future generations.

From this clip, viewers can see that the interviewees were filmed so that their signing was clearly visible, accompanied by a simultaneous voice-over translation. This format reflected the series’ aim to preserve language and personal stories – which were expressed autonomously by the subjects – and share these personal stories with a broader audience outside the Deaf community.