Graphic Recording at Future of Scots Symposium, Glasgow University

The Future of Scots, a collaborative research project funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh and run by a partnership of departments from the university along with external partners Education Scotland and Oor Vyce, aimed to lay the groundwork for community and stakeholder-driven language policy for Scots. 

 

The final symposium of this project was an opportunity to bring together academics, stakeholders, policy makers, community representatives and experts from non-Scots contexts to draw lessons from other minority-language contexts. This event was especially topical in the context of the government consultation on the Scottish Languages Bill. 

 

Helen was invited to record the final segment of this symposium where the facilitators of seven round-table events fed back in a plenary session. Helen was given a large wall space at the back of the room so that participants could easily come and interact with directly with the graphic, taking pictures, noticing connections and discussing salient points. The finished graphic took only 1.5 hours to produce. 

 

As always, accurate listening was crucial, as well as the ability to synthesise and link ideas and opinions. The graphic has been widely shared over social media by many participants at the conference, highlighting how a graphic record can help diverse groups of people to find common ground.