Design
What It's Like to Be Hearing Impaired in a Big, Dense City
An artist tackles the challenges of navigating dense urban areas with hearing loss.
The multimedia artist Trish Adams began losing her hearing in her mid-twenties. She now wears high-end hearing aids in both ears and continues to communicate through speech. But living in a big city—in her case, Melbourne, Australia—can still be frustrating.
After moving to Melbourne, Adams started noticing how intrusive various urban sounds could be: traffic roaring, car horns honking, music blasting, jackhammers drilling. Cities also give rise to chance social interactions, a large part of their appeal, but a source of stress for those with hearing loss.