Have a party to celebrate stuttering

Publication

The action of making 
something generally known.

— Oxford Dictionary

The format that the text / typeface is packaged in is as important as the textual content or typeface itself. Kind of like how in JJJJJerome’s work, there’s an interesting relationship to song or score sheets, through his use of a publication that is linked to his music. The format of this requires a unique level of engagement from the reader and listener.

Since I created the first issue of Dysfluent, I have been thinking about how the format of a publication defines the intent behind the work. It made me think about while there is a certain power to publication, there is also a quietness and consideration to it. At least from a design or artistic perspective, it requires a great deal of engagement from the viewer.

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Protest

A statement or action expressing disapproval of 
or objection to something.

— Oxford Dictionary

Recently I have been thinking of this concept of display, or posters, or for lack of a better term, protest.

Protest to me is really interesting from a creative or design stand point. For a person to display a poster, it is a deliberate act of reflecting an inner voice or identity, for the world to see.

I think of teenagers pinning up posters in their bedrooms, and of people marching on the streets voicing concerns. There is a certain passion or aggression (maybe not the right word?) to the idea of posters.

How does the idea of protest or display speak to earlier discussions on stigma?

I was interested to see what Fiona showed earlier in our talks, that banner where children visualised their stammer. There is something really nice there in terms of displaying their dysfluency.

It gets me thinking then. What is the content of the posters? What do they say? Do they need to say anything? or can they just be visualisations of dysfluency?

You have to see yourself in society to be a part of that society

Visual activism to confront and challenge societal preconceptions:

Look → Think → Act

Simi Linton (1998) in Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity quoted by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson:
 "We wield that white cane, or ride that wheelchair or limp that limp” … luxuriate in that stammer?

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The portrait invites us to stare, engrossed perhaps less with the “strangeness” of this woman’s disability and more with the strangeness of witnessing such dignity in a face that marks a life we have learned to imagine as unliveable and unworthy, as the kind of person we routinely detect in advance through medical technology and eliminate from our human community.

— Garland-Thomson (2009)

Flaunt the visible marks of disability. The relish with which disabled people can live their identity and present themselves to the starees.