wouldn’t you rather talk like us?

This exhibition of new and existing artwork by Paul Aston and Conor Foran was the first of its kind in the world: art that is a celebration of stammering pride. Both artists use their own experience of stammering to explore what it means to live in a world that privileges fluency. Creating physical space for art and community discussions reinforces the idea that stammering voices are valid and that artwork can inspire change in how people with speech disabilities see themselves.

The exhibition comprised oil painting portraits of people actively stammering by Paul Aston and concrete poetry posters by Conor Foran. The artists have collaborated on a joint artwork, Shaping Fluency, which explores the relationship between stammering voices and the fluent world.

The exhibition also featured a stuttering/stammering pride flag, Making Waves, accompanied by contributions from stammering community members, Alexandra Martins, Geneviève Lamoureux, Nic Maddy and Paul Roberts.

Fluency shaping is used in some speech therapy practices as a method of modifying speech to sound more fluent. Through its modularity ‘Shaping Fluency’ reflects the complex relationship between stammering and fluency.

Like a puzzle, the artwork initially looks like it can be assembled to form a ‘fluent’, readable image. On closer inspection it playfully resists this simple solution with repetitions, prolongations and blocked elements mirroring those we experience in our speech, prompting value to be found in its improvised and spontaneous arrangements.

Traditionally stammering has been framed as a failure to be fluent. In this series of collaborative portraits we want to question this approach and celebrate stammering as just the way we speak. Our stammering voices add to the rich diversity of speech.

Inspired by a slogan created by STAMMA for International Stammering Awareness Day 2021 (“No Diversity Without Dysfluency”) and by an interview with Patrick Campbell in Dysfluent Issue 2: Stammering Pride, 2023 (“Stammering Can Be Artistic”).

Imagined as deconstructed and reshaped protest posters, the artworks push legibility and playfully reflect the energy of the statements (set in Ruder Plakat by Lineto). The artist’s voice (set in Dysfluent Mono) is small, overlaid and visually challenging, asking the viewer to get close.

Four members of the stammering community were asked to respond to how the stammering pride flag makes them feel. In order of appearance:

Paul Roberts is a professional Engineer who has stammered all his life. He speaks to various groups, volunteers for STAMMA and co-founded a walk-and-talk group for those who stammer and their fluent advocates. Being an authentic speaker and a member of the stammering pride community allows him to be himself more than ever before.

Alexandra Martins is Brazilian, a Candomblé practitioner, a person who stutters, the communications director of the Disability Pride Parade, and the founder of Vozes Gagas (Stutter Voices). She is a video editor at TVE Bahia and also a graduate student in the Professional Master's Program in Dance at the Federal University of Bahia.

Nic Maddy is a speech therapist working within the NHS for over 20 years. She’s on the committee for the National Stammering Clinical Excellence Network. She’s passionate about creating a world that makes space for, and embraces stammering, working collaboratively with her young people and bringing the stammering pride movement into the therapeutic space.

Geneviève Lamoureux, a person who stutters, is a speech therapist and PhD student at Université de Montréal, Canada. She uses participative action research to co-create resources, including a short film, to foster accurate media representation of stuttering. Beyond her work, Geneviève enjoys writing, running, cycling, and connecting with nature.

An afternoon of discussions about the artwork took place in City Lit’s Cultureplex from 2–5pm on Saturday 30 November. Hosted by speech and language therapist and stammering pride ally Sam Simpson, the panel discussions were a time for the stammering community to explore and celebrate the generative role art is playing in stammering-affirming identity construction.