Yes, I Stammer

Only 1% of the UK adult population stammer (stuttering), a speech disorder that causes involuntarily pauses, repetitions, and difficulty when speaking. Since there is such a minority of sufferers in the UK this has given rise to the spread of misinformation and untruths about stammering — which is causing stereotypes and stigma surrounding the disorder.
Yes, I Stammer (2019) is a surrealistic interpretation of real people’s experiences with stammering. Each of the quotes presented on the images are people that suffer from stammering and have kindly provided their daily experiences living with stammering. Their words are then emphasised and visually represented through the medium of photography.
The following quotes are from real people who stammer.
Woman is shushed by another person.

Rushed: “People finish my sentences. It makes me rush and makes my stammer worse”. 4th April 2019. Cornwall, United Kingdom.

Woman has hands tied together.

Trapped: “[The stammer holds you back. You want to do things, you want to say things. It holds you back”. 16th April 2019. Wiltshire, United Kingdom.

Two women hold two bulbs, one is bright, one is dim.

Dim: “People thought I lacked intelligence all because of my stammer. This made me lose all confidence and started to make my stammer worse.” 8th April 2019. Cornwall, United Kingdom.

A woman in a yellow coat, alone.

Isolated: “I had very few friends at school and I felt alone, ashamed, embarrassed and isolated”. 14th April 2019. Wiltshire, United Kingdom.

Two woman have two different price tags. One high, one low.

Lesser: “You begin to convince yourself that your opinions are worth less than other people’s”. 1st April 2019. Cornwall, United Kingdom.

Woman begins to disintegrate.

Vanish: “Sometimes having a stammer just makes me want to fade away”. 27th March 2019. Cornwall, United Kingdom.

X-ray-like iamge with a woman pointing to her throat.

Stuck: “[Because of my stammer] I pretended to have something stuck in my throat”. 1st April 2019. Cornwall, United Kingdom.

Woman with words written across her face and body.

Lottery: “Words scare me. Which will came out, which won’t? It’s a lottery”. 18th March 2019. Cornwall, United Kingdom.

A woman is picked-up by a large hand and placed into a wastebin.

Useless: “[My stammer has] made me feel unemployable, a useless member of society”. 16th April 2019. Wiltshire, United Kingdom.

A woman with glitchy lines and distortions across her face and body.

Glitch: “Being called a glitch or broken. Children at school used to think I was ‘insane’ just because I stammered”. 18th March 2019. Cornwall, United Kingdom.

Acknowledgments
Special thank you to: Charles, Charlie, Cheryl, Elliot, and Pete for sharing their experiences with stammering.
Thank you to the stammering organisations for promoting the project: British Stammering Association, Scottish Stammering Network, and the Irish Stammering Association.
Finally, thank you to Abigail for modelling and for giving stammering a visual representation.
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