1. Long history of cultural activities

The roots of the Deaf Culture Days originate deep in the spiritual heritage of the deaf community.

Various deaf clubs have held a central role within the deaf community. Together with schools, the clubs have passed the deaf culture, traditions and values on to the generations that follow. The clubs have overseen the interests of the deaf, disseminated information and also acted as a way to foster deaf culture from an early era. They have provided the deaf with a natural way to interact with others using a common language, something that was not possible within the dominant culture of the hearing world.

In major cities, the club members gathered together weekly or monthly. In addition to spending evenings together and holding annual celebrations, the programme included plays, recitation of poems, magic performances, stories and presentations. Many clubs had their own drama clubs and there were also handicrafts or studying clubs available. The Helsinki Deaf and Mute Club officially launched its drama club in 1915, although the members had been performing plays since 1895.

At the end of the 1900s and the beginning of the 2000s, several talented artists rose from the deaf community, having studied at art institutions such as Ateneum. The deaf clubs also embraced the arts from the very beginning. The forerunners of cultural pastimes for the deaf were Albert Tallroth and Fritz Hirn, who both mastered a rich, flourishing sign language.

Tallroth is considered the founder of cultural activities for the deaf and a key developer for signed expression. He wrote poems that were published in the magazine for the deaf (Kuuromykkäin Lehti). He also performed his poems in sign language using beautiful, fluid movements. Tallroth and Axel Norstedt performed their 'songs of the deaf' pieces together with signing choirs as early as the late 1800s.

The era of oralism suppressed sign language and made the deaf feel embarrassed about their own language. During that era, the development of signed art halted and within around 20 years, its legacy was all but destroyed. However, the deaf clubs continued to use sign language, which partially contributed to the survival of the language.

The associations' district meetings developed into so-called presentation days, the first of which were held in 1921, that breathed new life into the cultural activities. Eventually, those events gave the push to start the Deaf Culture Days. Delivering presentations later became one of the competitions during the Culture Days. The celebrations organised during the Finnish Association of the Deaf jubilee years have also acted as events to present and overview of the deaf culture in general.