Meeting a protactile advocate

John Lee Clark is a deaf-blind author who recently moved to Montreal from the USA to work on his Ph.D. at Concordia University. Clark was born deaf into an American Sign Language (ASL) speaking family and was blind by adolescence. He is now an advocate for the protactile movement. 

Protactile is an emerging language that was initiated in 2007 by deaf-blind community members. While sign languages relies on visual information, protactile is based on touch and is practiced on the body. 

On October 22, the MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels) hosted the launch of Clark’s latest book, Touch the Future. Clark expressed his stories, poems and thoughts using protactile, which was translated live to English by protactile interpreters Jordan Goldman and Angel Dalys-Fine. It was then translated to ASL through an ASL interpreter and a Langue des signes québécoise-ASL interpreter.