People Who Stutter Create: Stuttering Can Create Time

Mar 20–Aug 11, 2024

Graphic with text in three languages discussing how stuttering can create time.

People Who Stutter Create: Stuttering Can Create Time is part of Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing and is presented at 95 Horatio Street, on the facade of the building across the street from the Whitney and the south end of the High Line.

The collective People Who Stutter Create (PWSC) contends that stuttering (also called stammering) can create room for deep listening and collaboration. Through repeated sounds, prolonged sounds, and blocks with no sound, the group aims to describe social reality while also being able to change it through the act of description. For its first project, PWSC mobilizes the Whitney’s exhibition billboard as a place to publicly celebrate the transformational space of dysfluency, a term that can encompass stuttering/stammering and other communication differences such as aphasia, Tourette’s, and dysarthria.

PWSC comprises five artists who stutter/stammer: Born in China, Jia Bin is a US-based doctoral student in communication sciences and disorders. With a deep commitment to empowerment and inclusion, Bin envisions innovative projects to spotlight the beauty and power of stuttered speech, fostering a more supportive world for those who stutter in any language. Delicia Daniels is a poet and activist. An assistant professor of creative writing, her debut poetry collection, The Language We Cry In, was published in 2017. JJJJJerome Ellis is a multi-hyphenate artist. Through music, text, performance, video, and photography, they research relationships among Blackness, disabled speech, divinity, nature, sound, and time. Conor Foran is a London-based Irish creative practitioner. Through his Dysfluent practice, he considers how stammering intersects with creativity and how art and design can instigate social change. Kristel Kubart is a speech-language pathologist who has cerebral palsy. She works with children, teens, and adults who stutter, and helps them embrace their stuttering, stutter more freely, and learn to trust their voice.

Concept/Creative Lead: JJJJJerome Ellis
Design: Conor Foran
Text: Jia Bin, Delicia Daniels, JJJJJerome Ellis, Conor Foran, Kristel Kubart
Translations: Angelica Bernabe, Jia Bin, James Harrison Monaco, Argenis Ovalles, Wendy Palomeque
Typography consultant: Zoe (Yu) Cui
Typefaces: Dysfluent Mono by Conor Foran and Glow Sans TC by Celestial Phineas

This work is part of a series of public art installations organized by the Whitney in partnership with TF Cornerstone and High Line Art.

People Who Stutter Create: Stuttering Can Create Time is part of Outside the Box programming, which is supported by a generous endowment from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation.

Image Description

Three lines of black text appear on a light seafoam green background:

La tartamudez nos ofrece tiempo

口吃者創創創創創創創創創創創造時間

Stuttering can create time.

The text is in a sans serif typeface organized in three straight lines within the top half of the composition. The bottom half of the composition is empty, emphasizing a sense of pauses, silences and expectations. The text is all lowercase and lacks punctuation, giving a casual and informal, almost text message-like feel. Each line of text represents a form of stuttered speech: blocks (pauses in speech), repetitions, and prolongations, respectively. The first line, in Spanish, translates literally to “Stuttering offers us time.” The space between the word "ofrece" (which translates to "offers") and the word "tiempo" (which translates to "time") represents a block. The second line, in Chinese, translates literally to “People who stutter create time.” The first character in the Chinese word for “create” is repeated. In the third line, in English, the “s” in “stuttering” is stretched horizontally to represent prolonged sound.

Tres líneas de texto negro aparecen sobre un fondo verde mar claro:

La tartamudez nos ofrece tiempo

口吃者創創創創創創創創創創創造時間

Stuttering can create time.

El texto está en una tipografía sans serif organizada en tres líneas rectas dentro de la mitad superior de la composición. La mitad inferior de la composición está vacía, enfatizando una sensación de pausas, silencios y expectativas. El texto está todo en minúsculas y carece de puntuación, lo que le da un tono casual e informal, casi como un mensaje de texto. Cada línea de texto representa una forma de habla tartamudeada: bloques (pausas en el habla), repeticiones y prolongaciones, respectivamente. La primera línea, en español, se traduce literalmente como "La tartamudez nos ofrece tiempo". El espacio entre "nos ofrece" y "tiempo" representa un bloque. La segunda línea, en chino, se traduce literalmente como "Las personas que tartamudean crean tiempo". Los primeros caracteres en la palabra china para "crear" se repiten. En la tercera línea, en inglés, “Stuttering can create time." [La tartamudez puede crear tiempo.], la "s" en "stuttering" se estira horizontalmente para representar un sonido prolongado.

三行黑色文字出现在纯净的浅海波绿色背景上：

la tartamudez nos ofrece tiempo

口吃者創創創創創創創創創創創造時間

stuttering can create time

这些文字采用无衬线字体排列在构图的上半部分。构图的下半部分为空，强调了一种停顿、沉默和期待的感觉。文字全小写且没有标点符号，给人一种随意、非正式，几乎是短信般的感觉。每行文字代表一种口吃的形式：卡顿（讲话中的停顿）、重复和延长。第一行是西班牙文，字面意思為“口吃为我们提供时间”。“我们”和“时间”之间的空格代表了一个卡顿。第二行是中文，字面意思是 “口吃者创造时间”。以重复中文词“创造”的第一字“创”代表口吃重复。第三行是英文，字面上的“stuttering”中的“s”被水平拉伸以代表延长的声音。