What/How Else Could 'Neurodiversity' Look Like?
#MeToo has exposed how women’s body, mind and mobility have been policed. #Timesup is showing how women are fighting back in a myriad of visible and vocal ways. Yet, as Guardian writer Frances Ryan points out, ‘disabled women are rarely featured in the media: even in campaigns or content that are purposely striving to include marginalised women routinely miss out those with disabilities’. The effect? By excluding ‘women like me’, we are ‘made to feel invisible’. And if disability is the ‘last frontier of inequality’, as argued by Ryan, it can be argued that hidden disability in women is something that needs to be especially highlighted. This is a photographic essay published on February 19th on Disability Arts Online that aims to contribute to this discourse, with a focus on neurodiversity. A documentation of a performance I carried out as a woman with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) Badge Wearing Mind wanderer In Action (MIA), it is an invitation to widen the visual (re)presentation of what we mean when we say that our brains are wired differently. Responses to the article has been positive. They include: ‘Excellent’ (Roundabout, UK dramatherapy charity), 'Great exploration of ADHD as a way of knowing & being' (Assistant Professor Dr Jess Hughes, Reading Area Community College, USA. 2018), and ‘Great piece, really interesting research’ (Tracy Turner, PhD researcher. 2018). Here are screenshots of the article. Another version will appear on the National Attention Deficit Disorder Information & Support Service newsletter in April 2018. The 72mm badges (series of 5) premiered at the UK Adult ADHD Network 2017 in September 2017. The photographic performance series Badge Wearing Mind wanderer In Action (MIA) was performed in October 2017, and the earliest public articulation in words of the work was in November 2017 at the PsychArt Conference 2017.
4 Comments
|