#small talk conversation

[smalltalksblog]

Conversation 2: Kelli Pennington & Briana Cerezo

[thepoetarefke-blog]

In Favor of Small Talk

I've seen some articles about "getting past the small talk." I don't think people appreciate small talk. It has its uses. It is not always appropriate or desired to engage in thought-provoking or insightful conversations. Sometimes what is called for is boring, hum-drum conversation.

I’ll give some examples:

You’re at work. While you don’t hate your coworkers, none of them is a person you’d interact with if you weren’t working with them. In this situation, small talk is required. You stick to safe, mundane conversations, because you don’t really want to talk to them, you just don’t want to seem rude by completely ignoring them. Small talk allows you to talk to them without really talking about anything of any import, while maintaining a sense that you might be friendly.

Family gatherings. For similar reasons, there might be members of your family that you see regularly but would never actually want to be friends with or hang out with, especially not as much as you see them. Small talk helps keep conversations with them brief.

You have to think of your rhetorical situation and audience. To whom are you speaking? If you’re speaking with someone you want to get to know better, then small talk is inappropriate. Then you should ask more open ended questions that allow the person to engage you in more insightful, thought-provoking conversation.

But if your only goal is to get through the event or occasion without really talking to anyone, small talk lets you talk to people without really talking about anything of consequence, without seeming completely rude by ignoring them.

[smalltalksblog]

New Project: Small Talk Conversations

For the New Year, we are excited to announce our new collective project.

On the first day of each month, one of the artists of Small Talk will post an image for the rest of the collective to respond to. The artists will have the month to reflect and reply with an image of her own. Throughout the project, we will continue our dialogue with each other as we explore what it means to be connected and informed by each other as artists. We invite you to follow along as the project unfolds!

The first artist to post will be the founder of Small Talk Collective, Kristina Hruska.