Work Description

Akiko Hada's The Fall of a Queen, or The Taste of Fruit to Come (1991) is a video opera that combines singing, spoken language, sign language, and subtitles into a multilayaed audiovisual piece. It is based on a libretto by Wolfgang Müller. 

Played by singer Hermoine Zittler, the queen mingles incognito among her dissatisfied people in order to prevent an uprising. She sings and communicates in spoken English. Her counterpart, performed by the Deaf activist and sign language poet Gunter Trube, signs in British Sign Language (BSL) an International Sign (IS). 

Produced for British television on Channel 4, the video opera is designed for a hearing, English-speaking public. Subtitles translate selected dialogue and sign language passages into English, while texts sung and spoken in English go largely untranslated. In this way, communication can be experienced as hierarchical, fragile, and unstable. 

For the first time, the Carefuffle working group has expanded the work with accessible captions that translate speech, sound, and music into text. Through typeface, color, placement, animation, and timing, the captions themselves become a visual element that challenges hierarchies of perception and opens up new aesthetic and critical perspectives.

Bios

Akiko Hada (*1961 in Tagawa, Japan) lives and works in Berlin. Her artistic practice evolved from the experimental music scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s, developing increasingly towards video art. Hada moves between the genres of performance and video. Her works include music videos, the documentation of performances and concerts, lyrical narratives, and animations. 

Wolfgang Müller (*1957 in Wolfsburg) is an artist, musician, and author. In 1980, he founded the post-punk band Die Tödliche Doris and has since worked interdisciplinarily in music, radio plays, performance, and visual arts. He taught Experimental Sculpture at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg.

Gunter Trube (*1960 in Munich–2008 in Berlin) was an artist, sign language poet, performer, and a central figure of the queer Deaf movement in Germany. He became known as a sign language poet through his staging of the Christmas tale Snow (1994). Throughout his life, he was committed to the recognition of German Sign Language and the visibility of Deaf culture in the arts, politics, and society.

Carefuffle is a disabled-led working group with a focus on creating captions for ar-tists’ moving images. They believe accessibility is a creative and liberatory practice that challenges ableist narratives, supports disabled folks, and unlocks new forms of cultural expression. They envision a future in which access is inseparable from culture – an act of care, joy, and justice that enriches communities and expands what art can be.

Venue

Storage Museum
Himmelgeister Str. 107
40225 Düsseldorf

Thu – Sun, 14-18:00

The entry is free.

Accessibility

• Spoken English

• Integrated artistic captions in German and English

• On-site assistance

• Assistant dogs are welcome

• The Storage Museum is fully accessible at ground level. Parking is available on-site, and assistance can be provided. Part of the path is cobblestone. The museum has a wheelchair-accessible, gender-neutral restroom. More information:  https://storagemuseum.org/kontakt