Everyone is an artist.
Lots of people consider themselves to be "hackers" or "makers", but wouldn't call themselves "artists". One of our goals should be to show people that they are. We can do this by creating a level playing field between more established artists and people just bringing a little thing that they've made. We want people to be proud of their work and see how valued it is.

Being encouraging:

• lots of people are just starting out making things and need encouragement

Even if you've done EMF multiple times before and are an experienced installation artist, making something new is always hard. It's easy to get sucked into negative thoughts about your work and sometimes someone just saying "yes! that sounds amazing!" is what you need to find the motivation to complete it.

Equally, sometimes a project just doesn't work out how you'd hoped, no matter how hard you work on it. Having someone say, "hey! that's cool, don't worry about it" can restore your confidence.