Making Things Easier To Understand (or F**K Art Speak) Fergus Evans, 16 January 2017 This is Bad Enough This is bad enough So please … Don’t give me gobbledegook. Don’t give me pages and dense pages and “this leaflet aims to explain … ” Don’t give me really dodgy photocopying and “DO NOT REMOVE FOR REFERENCE ONLY.” Don’t give me “drafted in collaboration with a multidisciplinary stakeholder partnership consultation short-life project working group.” I mean is this about you guys or me? This is hard enough So please: Don’t leave me oddly none the wiser or listening till my eyes are glazing over. Don’t leave me wondering what on earth that was about, feeling like it’s rude to ask or consenting to goodness knows what. Don’t leave me lost in another language adrift in bad translation. Don’t leave me chucking it in the bin Don’t leave me leaving in the state I’m in. Don’t leave me feeling even more clueless than I did before any of this happened. This is tough enough So please: Make it relevant, understandable – or reasonably readable at least. Why not put in pictures or sketches, or something to guide me through? I mean how hard can it be for the people who are steeped in this stuff to keep it up-to-date? And you know what I’d appreciate? A little time to take it in a little time to show them at home a little time to ask “What’s that?” a little time to talk on the phone. So give us the clarity, right from the start the contacts, there at the end. Give us the info you know we need to know. Show us the facts, some figures And don’t forget our feelings. Because this is bad and hard and tough enough so please speak like a human make it better not worse. Elspeth Murray. Art speak is a barrier. If we don't break down what we are saying we will never diversify our audiences, so the same people will go to the same shows etc Its fine to use language but not to use jargon. You gotta think, what would my Nan make of this The best and most successful ways to break down barriers and arts speak etc is to create spaces for conversations between artists and communities (see Trinity Centers IGNiTE project) Say what it is not what it will make you feel (as an audience member can decide for themselves how they will feel). What does it look like? (what happens if I lick it?) Comments: 1 Elspeth Murray, 17 January 2017 Thanks Fergus and friends for calling this session and welcoming a badger into the discussion and sharing my/her poem here too :-) I sometimes think that professional language is something we hide behind - *professing* to know what we're talking about when sometimes we'd be better just speaking our truth in simple terms and owning up to the parts we're still not sure about. And yes - asking yourself what your granny would make of it is a great question!