How does naming affect experience? What does diagnosing a person’s experience as disordered do to that person’s sense of self? Can it give them agency or the ability to self-advocate? I have been invited by Grace Denton to think through these questions with others who resonate with the descriptor ‘artists who might not know they are neurodivergent and neurodivergent people who might not know they are artists’.
In BALTIC’s Level 1 event space the curtain is drawn halfway across the floor-to-ceiling window. Three large oil cloth banners hang in the space, one harlequin, one pinwheel of patchwork using material patterned with daisies, vegetables, poppies and grass. The one closest to me has its gaps filled up with empty blister-packs of medication. There is the option of backed chairs or bean bags printed with cats, birds and a three horned creature brandishing a stick. The creatures say ‘ahhh’, ‘good vibes’, and ‘bad vibes’. A quiet space is accessible at any time (more beanbags and chairs plus Jaffa Cakes). At the back of the room is a large table where artist and small-press publisher Cherry Styles facilitates drop-in zine making. We are invited to move around and take breaks as needed.
Nominally Sovereign is an ensemble event. It is the day Grace showcases her forty minute film ‘All Facing in the Same Direction’ (2023), which she has produced through an open call process, asking neurodivergent artists to share their experiences of diagnosis, official or otherwise. It features work by Victoria Louise Doyle, Sal Harris, J Neve Harrington, Evan Ifekoya, Andre-Alex Kamienski, Lucy Barker, Jennifer Doveton, Nick Fitzgerald, Tara Johnston-Comerford, Johanna Koen, Ant Lightfoot, Catrin Osborne, Emma Plover, Maisie Pritchard, Millie Sheppard and Geraldine Snell.
For the event at BALTIC, Grace has invited contributions from Project Art Works, a collective of neurodivergent artists and activists based in Hastings, and kin collective, ‘an art rabble of disabled artists proudly based and grown in the NorthEast of England’. She has also invited artist Ciara Lenihan to close the day by facilitating a discussion to process the event. A showreel of films also gathered from the open call plays on a loop in the Level 1 cinema space.
‘All Facing in the Same Direction’ unfolds through overlaid sequences. First person monologues from sixteen artists who responded to Grace’s open call appear alongside YouTube sampled clips of military drills and group yoga. The assembled footage is layered over scenes featuring Grace, who carries out activities in a serenely sparse studio on a lake in mountainous surroundings; a fantasy of seclusion made real. In her first appearance on camera Grace wears one of those fleece snuggle hoodies that were recommended when the energy crisis ramped up last winter. She yawns and rubs her eyes as, overlaid, artist Geraldine Snell speaks of the difficulties she experienced in exams at school.
The monologues have the spontaneous feel of voice notes. I have a pang of recognition at one contributor’s out of breath insight shared from their bike at the side of the road (they often have ideas in transitional spaces). This one is about whether all neurodivergent people struggle to understand data centres. It is a turn of phrase they use, ‘the tail of the thought, like a dream, where you catch it backwards and pull it into space’ which stays with me. I relate strongly to this sense of having to trace my way back through ideas felt in transit, especially when travelling at speed.
There is humour among the samples and juxtapositions used. At one point Grace breathes, eyes closed in Suhkasana (cross-legged, hands on knees) in front of a laptop showing affirmation mantras about sovereignty. They appear in fluorescent green script and fly out, engulfing the frame, after being read out in an easy-to-parody American wellbeing voice. There is laughter here amongst the audience, as well as at an earlier point when, in a familiar-to-many scene of double screen intake – Instagram scrolling while watching something on a laptop – we see Grace tapping ‘like’ on images of muppets.
In this moment in the film the laptop is playing ‘Love Island’, another amusing high-low cultural contrast to Grace’s studio residency context. While only a glimpse, its image leaves me with an echoing thought about the well-honed convention of using ‘talking heads’ in reality television. The conceit, I realise, is one reason I find these shows relaxing. While undoubtedly used by producers to spin out content, as a viewer, seeing characters reflect back on the show’s actions as if in real time allows greater space for processing and a simulation of characters having narrative agency over their lives.
Being able to tell one’s own story is one component of sovereignty. In her introduction to the film and the event Grace shares how she sought an ADHD diagnosis with the aim of ‘taking back control’ of her life, by understanding why and how her ways of being rubbed up against neurotypical expectations. Post-diagnosis, this ‘carrot’ of self-governance has proven less simple, but she still recognises the need for ‘a specificity of language in order to describe and advocate for ourselves’.
The monologues in ‘All Facing in the Same Direction’ add nuance to the all-encompassing diagnoses of Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, Dyscalcula, Dysgraphia and Tourettes. Themes highlighted by these individual experiences sometimes sync up within the edit. Its pacing allows time to process. We encounter similar ideas from different perspectives, moving between settings. Ideas are felt more strongly in transitional spaces.
The experiences are not made universal, however. We hear from a wide range of contributors, whose experiences of neurodiversity intersect with those of being Black, being trans, being a woman, or even being introverted. This collective is in constellation, it has not coalesced.
The film ends with a series of future oriented thoughts. It is time to fuck the norm. We need ways of using diagnostic terms to find community, while remaining fluid and open to change. We need emergent categories. We need to create a world open enough for neurodivergent people to dream, thrive, and if they want to, have a quiet life.
Presenting next, Project Art Works share a video. It shows someone mixing paint, shaking it up in pots and dropping it onto surfaces. There is a repeat shot of hands sorting through words written in coloured letters onto strips of paper. We see a group of people walking through a mountain landscape and I think back to Grace’s film and rural settings as healing spaces, which are not always accessible. This film is an ambient portrayal of actions without narration.
Project Art Works CEO Kate Adams introduces the organisation, which has been operating in Hastings since 1996 and has recently presented work at Documenta 15, Tate Liverpool and at Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in Coventry for their Turner Prize exhibition in 2021. Their exhibition ‘Residential’ will open at BALTIC in September 2023 showcasing and continuing their project of awareness raising and engagement with communities local to the gallery.
The majority of Project Art Works’ collaborators, as Kate puts it, ‘don’t have voice or cognitive privilege’, a definition she prefers over ‘non-verbal’ because it gives room for someone to communicate without language. Kate shares the ways collaborators have a wide range of forms of expression, from mark making in sand, to the elaborate paintings artist Siddharth Gdiyar creates after being allowed to settle in the studio in the ways he needs to, by making noise and setting off fire alarms, behaviours for which he has been excluded from many other spaces.
Kate shares ‘Kin’ (2023), a film by Project Art Works which shows the non-verbalised bond between siblings Mell, Janine and their brother Carl who doesn’t use language. Home video from their childhood makes visible the ways the siblings understand one another through play. We are shown how Carl creates artworks today including large dot paintings and associative word lists. In voice-over and speaking to camera Carl’s sisters share the frustrations they have felt at times during misunderstandings with their brother. Mell shares her repeated childhood wish for her brother to speak. As she elaborates I write down her quote, ‘You don’t have to talk conventionally to say what you need.’ and later underline it when I hear it read aloud by another participant in the closing session.
Responding to an audience question Kate speaks of the need for the work Project Art Works makes with collaborators to be recognised as artworks, and not documents of socially-engaged practice. Something large institutions often have to come round to. She calls for the need to use positive language as the word ‘disability’ gets in the way and doesn’t allow for sensory intelligence, particular curatorial preoccupations or a gestalt experience of the world to be valued. Exhibitions and programmes with multisensory approaches mean everyone has access. If the world was more caring, she says, no-one would need a diagnosis.
kin collective brings energy to the difficult post-lunch slot with an invitation to be active. We throw tennis balls in pairs that we have inscribed in Sharpie with an animal that represents our neurodivergence. We build forts from cardboard which represent our access barriers. There is a lightness to this session. After warming up I am surprised how well my partner and I throw and catch our balls as the circle widens across the room. Amongst the fun, the group’s facilitation draws out meaningful observations. One participant speaks of her frustrations with the neurotypical expectation of eye contact to communicate friendliness and authenticity. I am reminded of the mention in Grace’s film of smiling as a literal form of masking, and the nods of recognition this provoked from those watching.
The event closes with a discussion hosted by Ciara Lenihan. They set the tone for a productive session by describing their experience of the world as looking at themselves as a character, specifically a hybrid of Robocop and Xena Warrior Princess. They invite participants to share their special interests, and examples of quiet and loud ‘stims’ – the self-stimulating actions autistic people and others use for self-regulation. Ciara shares their own examples and responds generously to those who contribute from beanbags, from the microphone and via Zoom. I am reminded by Ciara we are gifts to the world. It felt to me, as someone with a Dyslexia diagnosis and in the process of being assessed for ADHD, what I imagine it is like for a person of faith to attend worship.
Lots of words have been spoken today, but the presentations and discussions have shown the ways language doesn’t solely carry information and isn’t the only means of communicating. There were tears of recognition in response to Grace’s film. There was animated discussion during breaks and in kin collective’s session about the joys and bafflement of being different from the social norm. Across each part of the day there were manifesto-like proclamations for what a world could look like for neurodivergent people. More than the feat of beginning to script such a future, the event created the space for this imagined world to be felt.
Nominally Sovereign took place at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, 26 July 2023.
The showreel shared on the day was made up from films contributed by Ashokkumar Mistry, Beth Malcolm, Byron Vincent, chelsea hare, Eva Marschan-Hayes, Karl Birrane, Laurie Coldwell, Liza Liebling, Rose Robbins and Sandra Twine.
The six yellow patterned bean bags were originally made for Sonic Signals (2023) a project by Abbas Zahedi, Chandos Primary School and Eastside Projects.
http://www.gracedenton.co.uk/#/all-facing-in-the-same-direction/
Kate Liston is an artist and writer based in Gateshead.
This review is supported by Arts Council England and Northumbria University.
Published 02.10.2023 by Lesley Guy in Explorations
2,023 words