Why we need to think about neurotypicalism

I now have some seriously considered teaching material, do get in touch via the contact page on my website for a conversation about making institutional change happen.

How was it for you? #NUNOproject

What NUNO has created – through it’s emphasis on people and relationships – is a warm hug. Soon I will be asking the artists on the Arts Council England (ACE) funded Neither Use Nor Ornament (NUNO) project, how was it for you? I have to do this as part of my evaluation process, but I’m

I am an artist. I am also an autistic person. I live in sensory peril.

The sensory torture of a hospital environment became my reality a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been forced to reflect how much activity must be sacrificed to manage sensory stress in my life.

This is my admission to myself and to the world. Mainly, I manage my life, I am happy and I am loved. But it is very hard indeed when I am out of my bubble.

Saturated – losing my mojo, & the question of embodied existence as an autistic person.

Photograph by Stu Allsopp 2018 Don’t bother reading this. Yes – probably this blog post has been written before. Possibly even by me? I’ve written so very many posts since my diagnosis that even I can’t keep up! Deja vu, reinventing the wheel, this is what comes to mind when I hit the web these

The unmasking #autism

But unmasking means changing habits and changing thought patterns too. Unmasking means I can begin to find my own contours and stay me shaped for longer. This makes it easier to locate myself if I have to mask. I can recover more quickly too. 

Autistic resilience: talking up competence.

Perhaps we underestimate just how hard we’re working everyday to keep afloat in a world which does not support our divergent neurologies?

A foreign country and a bloodhound brain #autism

I follow trails – endless trails, down endless rabbit holes it seems, which echo with endless bile and all that political chatter. Not idle. No. But quite quite mountainous.

And yet my ‘unusual brain’ (a bloodhound of sorts) hunts on (and on). Seeking patterns to arrive at meanings. This time predicated on fear.

Autism: sensory challenge, overload and functionality at work.

I think that for ‘neurologically biased’ we should read neurological privilege and allow that working accommodations begin right there. But first the bias must be revealed and spoken.

Why you shouldn’t identify with autistic people. Try some empathy instead.

Often NT people begin to think that they themselves could be ‘a little bit’ autistic, with a matching and equal array of challenges.

Autism; invisibility & being.

I’m sickened by the imposed invisibility of many of my fellow autistic art professionals. It’s time to get back on my soapbox and make some noise.