Making Waves, Theaterformen

Our second collaboration with Theaterformen, this project started from ideas of DeafSpace and Disability Pride, and created an accessible and playful platform outside one of Hannover’s main theatres. The installation, called Making Waves, aimed to support the coming together of multiple ways of being in the world for informal socialising, music and events and for communal dining.

Designed by Deaf architects Richard Docherty and Chris Laing, together with Zoe Partington and Jos Boys, ‘Making Waves’ was about:

• Disturbing a situation by changing things or by challenging the way things are done, often in a way that improves the situation.

• Having fun, making a splash, attracting attention, producing vibrations that transfers energy and information from one place to another.

• Expressing the movement of bodies, curving forms that express the performative and social dynamics of sign language, the shape of sound and its vibration.

The platform itself offered a range of sensory experiences for everyone to enjoy. Starting from valuing the perceptions, embodiments and experiences of diverse deaf and disabled people, it was a place to go to play with water, sound, light, stimming and colour.