During evenings about autism, the emphasis is often on what doesn’t go well or isn’t easy. Jam van der Aa, as an artistic researcher and someone with firsthand experience, drew on the latest brain theories and the work of various creators (comedians, writers, artists) to show that there’s another side to the story: autistic joy!
This a/Artist evening concluded the series of talks highlighting the artists behind Mediamatic’s 2023 museum night programme Self, which was all about reflecting on our minds and the ways in which they might be normal or not so normal.
First, Jam shared her own experiences of discovering autistic joy in art and gardening, as well as her research into recent work of autistic writers shifting the narrative around neurodivergence, introducing the idea of embracing weirdness as 'gold'. After the break, she hosted a workshop during which we designed masks expressing these weirdnesses and the joy that can also come with them.
Read on for a more detailed report!
Really nice feelings
'I’m never sure how to introduce myself“, Jam began — 'I’m trying to figure out who I am, but instead I’ll talk about what I do.' And about not knowing what to do: 'I’ll begin in a very dark place in my life, once again I wasn’t able to keep a job, I was on sick leave…then covid came, everything was way too much, I couldn’t stay indoors…' In the midst of this difficult time, Jam decided to start a new project, which she called Love Letters to No One in Particular. She took to the streets at night to spray quotes on walls and pavements, 'to celebrate love and graffiti at the same time'.
'And it gave me a lot of really nice feelings', she shared, and showed us a list of some of these feelings: 'Being flooded with warmth, your surroundings melting away and the joy being all you can focus on, being completely consumed by the feeling of joy, like every part of your body is tingling, needing to move and stim to bear the feeling, the intensity can also feel overwhelming or exhausting…'
She continued: 'I identify as autistic, and sometimes I’m really very tired. I was watching things on Netflix, and found the comedy special Douglas by the comedian and autism advocate Hannah Gadsby. And suddenly I thought, oh! This tells me something about myself.' She showed us an excerpt from the show, in which Gadsby describes an altercation with a primary school teacher which revolved around relating to a cardboard box by way of prepositions, and the many misunderstandings that ensued when her younger self thought to ask “out of the box“ questions about the situation.
'You should watch this show.', Jam recommended. And continued: 'Then I started to dig into what this autism thing is. You can find a lot of information on the internet, but it occurred to me that autism is really new, we don’t really know much about it yet. It was only in 1982 that the different phenotypes were described. So we’re dealing with that we don’t know much about. When I went through the diagnostic process, I was identified as an autistic person, I thought it was a problem, because it made me feel like I’m ill or broken, like there’s something wrong with me. I thought: Do I need to be fixed?'
Describing your own experience
Instead, she returned to the list of joyful feelings. 'This is what I experienced while carrying around my cans at night in the street, and it’s a whole other side of autism I discovered.' It was something she hadn’t found reflected in the Dutch information on autism she’d researched, but did begin to find in the work of writers from other countries. 'For example in Great Britain a lot of autistic writers are trying to move away from the stereotypes by also describing the nice things about being autistic, such as this overt autistic joy. Traditionally, autistic people have always been looked at. But as a community we can also look through our own eyes and describe what we experience.'
Jam mentioned another thing that brings her joy: gardening. 'I have a small city garden, and when I’m there, I’m really happy. It’s the same place within myself as when I’m — I call it gardening in the streets.' Whereas her garden gives her the joy of solitude, “gardening the streets“ comes with interactions and reactions. 'People took pictures, posted them on Instagram, and sometimes they would directly react to a quote.' Similarly to Hannah Gadsby, Jam realised that receiving this kind of feedback from people also came with feelings of joy.
'But basically, when I write job applications stating that I am autistic, I do not get such positive reactions', she admitted. This has to do with the fact that most people still associate autism with stigma and stereotypes. Out of anger about the status quo of always being described, researched, looked at from the outside, autistic advocate Laura Tisoncik launched the network autistics.org in 1998, with its popular satirical subsection Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical (NT), the contents of which have since been copied onto another website after the original disappeared. 'I’m not sure if you can call the Institute an artistic statement, but I tend to feel that this form of activism is also artistic, conceptual.', Jam reflected. 'She made this whole website to turn things around. That’s also what I wanted to question here with the Self test: Based on which things do we put people in boxes. Lots of times it’s the negative things.'
Autistic art?
Jam met a/Artist co-curator Annelies Wina Doom during a congress hosted by FANN (Female Autism Network of the Netherlands), during which Jam was asked to give a talk about art and autism. 'I did study psychology but never got my diploma, but I do see distinct characteristics of what I perceive as a product of the autistic mind in some artists’ work', she said. 'Hanne Darboven is a good example of a person who ticks a lot of boxes on different levels…', she listed, 'Another example I really really like is On Kawara…', and a third example: Paulien Oltheten, an Amsterdam-based street photographer. Jam showed us Oltheten's series of 'seating objects', people sitting on a brick, a stack of books... 'It’s about finding patterns', Jam reflected.
Trauma
'Then I started thinking, is it a disorder rather than a condition?', Jam continued. 'When something is new, also in science, you have a lot of controversial angles of exploration'. She walked us through a few of the perspectives authors have put forward in research on autism.
The physician and author Gabor Mate, for example, has controversially claimed that autism and ADHD can be thought of as trauma responses. 'I find this way of thinking really interesting', Jam said — 'I personally don’t know a lot of autistic people who haven’t experienced trauma. And when you are diagnosed with autism, it’s always because you had a problem; you don’t seek psychological help if you’re not in pain.'
Predictive brains
The psychologist and autism researcher Peter Vermeulen on the other hand pioneered the theory of the predictive brain: in order to navigate our complex worlds, human brains must be able to predict situations based on context and existing knowledge. Typical brains can filter out slight differences or discrepancies, whereas neurodivergent brains might get hung up or distracted by them. Jam showed a short video clip to explain: When you first learn how to drive a car, you were probably hyper-aware of where to look, where to place your hands, every small movement. However, over time, the process likely became more automated, so that you might now be able to listen to the radio or talk to people at the same time. She stopped the video, stating: 'This does not work with my brain. When I’m the driver, I often ask aloud: Which one is the break, which one is the gas, where is the clutch? This makes people feel very unsafe, but for me it’s normal, I’m just checking! It sometimes feels like I’m drunk and everybody else is sober, or maybe the other way around.'
Weird sisters
A lot of autistic writers with a background in the arts or cultural sector are beginning to publish more openly and positively on the subject of autism, Jam told us: 'I find it fascinating that in the realm of the arts and literature a lot of people seem to tend to have a different way of looking at the world.' She named the example of British writer and poet Joanne Limburg, who, after receiving a midlife autism diagnosis, published the bookLetters to my Weird Sisters: On Autism and Feminism. 'She wrote letters to, for example, Virginia Woolf', Jam explained. Drawbacks and dangers of retro-diagnosis aside, Limburg represents a growing group of people within the cultural sector 'emancipating' autism by providing inside perspectives.
Weirdness as gold
What’s more, she recognised sort of widespread appreciation for the weirdness the arts are able to provide for society: 'I saw this movie, Poor Things. I really liked it, and I thought yes, we do love weirdness. We like artists who are weird, writers who are weird… so there is some kind of value in not really fitting in.' She also mentioned the character of Sherlock Holmes as depicted in the TV series Elementary: 'He’s an intelligent guy, his mind is vibrant, associative, he has a really good idea for detail, but people don’t really perceive him as likeable or nice, they don’t really like him, but they need him — and he’s funny'. In the real world, of course, not fitting in usually plays out less glamorously, with opportunities being passed by those who don’t succeed in adhering to social norms and winning people over to advance their own interests.
Still, Jam is on the search for 'gold': 'Certain characteristics of weirdness that we also classify as autistic that people really like. I think that as a community we of course have difficulties, but we also have vivid minds, we can very focused and are able to research things very deeply. But how do we get these things out without constantly struggling and feeling tired?'
She concluded: 'I think neurodivergent people do put up a show to appear normal, but I’m curious — because in art a certain weirdness or obsession is valued, there’s a quality to it, but how can we reach the public with it?'
Making this weirdness visible was also the topic of the workshop Jam hosted after the dinner break. First, however, there was time for questions.
Q&A
One guest pointed out that while Jam focused on neurodivergence in the arts, it is also frequently found 'in the world of the nerds'. 'I wonder if you ever considered that world, have you considered taking on the nerd perspective?'
'Yes!', Jam replied. 'There are other characteristics associated with autism that come in handy there.'
'Your list of joyful feelings, I think it also applies to writing nice code or analysing complex problems.', the guest added, and Jam agreed.
'What are some things we could do to move away from this idea of needing to be fixed?', a/Artist colleague Fern asked.
In her answer, Jam reflected that it isn’t the neurodivergent people who necessarily need to take action, but the society around them — 'although I don’t really like this us and them kind of thinking.' Again, she came back to the work of writers and advocates educating people to let go of stereotypes: 'When you ask people in the street what they think of when they think of ADHD; they probably still think of a little white boys who runs around screaming. But when there are, for example, female writers claiming these labels, the whole perception of it changes.'
She added: 'I think there are a lot of people who have neurodivergent brains, but they are in a happy place, they had a loving family that provided the special care they needed, so they function. A lot of people with an autism find ways to function. So, it’s not that you can’t function, but it is a condition that people, and society, need to adapt to.' As a comparison, she mentioned the places where sidewalks are lowered to allow for wheelchair users to enter them. 'Like for bicycles?', I asked from the audience, to which Jam replied enthusiastically: 'It’s nice you say that, because it was initially meant for people in wheelchairs, but it shows that you adapt to this minority and it actually benefits everyone.'
Another guest responded: 'If I continue that line of thinking, I come to capitalism and whether or not you are able to function within the capitalist system. I think the diagnosis of autism spectrum has a lot to do with whether you function in this system — neurotypical people function better. Do you relate to that?'
Jam agreed: 'I appreciate my inability to work forty hours per week. I don’t need a coach to make me fit into a toxic system.' Maybe the current system, like sidewalks that never lower down to the street, is bad for all of us, we concluded.
'Would it be possible to have a commercial company with only autistic employees that is autism friendly?', someone wondered. Another guest shared his experience with working for an IT company that has come close to achieving this, realising the potential of their autistic employees and investing effort into creating a safe and friendly environment for them.
Jam responded that while this example was encouraging and interesting, it unfortunately doesn’t reflect the general situation: 'There is a huge group of neurodivergent people that doesn’t contribute to some commercial end result, so there is a lot less effort put into those people.'
In the arts, where funding is often hard to come by for anyone, it is even more difficult for neurodivergent artists to find a comparable niche.
Workshop: Masks for unmasking
After dinner, we reconvened in the Tuinkamer for the workshop portion of the evening. A long table was filled with crafting materials: coloured cardboard paper, scissors, glue, pencils…
Jam explained that the idea of the workshop was to use the materials to create a mask symbolising the “weirdness“ participants would normally not show while interacting with other people —in other words, she asked us to create masks for unmasking.
Some participants immediately got to work, enthusiastically painting and cutting paper, while others were content to just observe. Jam walked around listening to ideas and offering insights and advice, and there was a photographer present to take portraits of guests wearing their finished mask. While the constructions we created were more or less elaborate, guests agreed that the workshop was a fun and relaxed way to reflect on our minds and the joy to be found in personal weirdnesses.
These a/Artist events on neurodiversity in the arts are held every third Monday of the month. We organise an evening with presentations by artists, a good conversation and something to eat (included in the ticket). Everyone is welcome!
