What changes in the world when, at some point, you can no longer hear it? Writer, artist, and policy advisor Mirthe Berentsen is late-deafened and reflects from a body that inhabits multiple languages at once: spoken, written, and signed. Berentsen grew up in a hearing world, with spoken language, unaware that an entirely different world existed where she could also live. Learning sign language feels as if she always had the key to a house, but only later discovered where it stood. In her keynote for Poetry International, she explores that house and what can be learned from the in-between space, of gestures that cannot exist without other bodies, of a grammar formed in the air between people, and of language made with your hands.
Please note: the guests use Dutch Sign Language (NGT) and spoken Dutch. The conversation is translated into International Sign (IS), NGT and spoken Dutch.
