And so it’s back to work! What a Summer it’s been. I’ve written about my Summer of love for neurodiversity on my blog, The Other Side, and I’m hopeful that many more people will read the rather extraordinary article co-written with Brent White, creator and director of ACAT Ala Costa Adult Transition Centre, which made it into publication in the Disability Studies Quarterly for Winter 2015. As Brent says,
“In the piece we wrote, we are birds, we walk with ghosts. This beautiful wordless place. Friendship, love, wings and ghosts.”
You can read the article and my briefest of introductions here:
It’s not that I’m leaving my beloved neurodiverse universe behind me, I couldn’t if I tried, but rather that my focus must change. My two loves run parallel, art and the neurodiverse mind, but my attention must often switch between them, though I am increasingly fascinated by the overlap. I sense another body of work that may reflect this in the future, but for now I’ll let it rest and settle.
I’ll still be blogging on The Other Side, but you’ll find me much more present here, where my reflections on the Spanish Civil War create a bridge into the contemporary – where we are facing a refugee crisis of our own, one which demands a compassionate response. For all my work on this project, the most gruelling was to uncover my family’s plight in 1939, displaced and terrorised they sought refuge in France and in England. There is no place for the word migrant in such scenarios and a current attempt to do so by the BBC has rightly been countered with one of those increasing number of online petitions that have become our daily reality in these most difficult and arguably undemocratic of times. We vote by email – signing our objections into cyberspace.
There are no words for the image that has emerged of the tiny body of Aylan Kurdi, washed ashore, as though in slumber but drowned at sea, attempting to flee a war zone and find safety with his family. I can’t and won’t share that image here – though my mind played with this possibility, it is too heartrending, you’ve all seen it already, what good could I do. I feared also exploiting this little soul, no, Aylan will get nothing but respect here. He will also find his way onto my Tributes and Ofrenda blog just across the way – also on a_n.
https://www.a-n.co.uk/blogs/tributes-and-offerings
But the image I create for Aylan will be mediated through art, in my studio, away from political argument. It will be tribute and offering only in this space. I’m reminded of Doris Salcedo – an artist I featured in my recent blog post Becoming Human – who wisely suggests that it is only be remembering (honouring) that we remain human.
https://www.a-n.co.uk/blogs/barcelona-in-a-bag/post/52424806
Our challenge is to remain human in the face of this media mediated suffering and the attempt to politicise what is a human tragedy.
