I’m very interested in inclusion. This is probably because I’ve experienced exclusion. I know what’s like to find yourself behind a glass wall looking in.
As an unidentified learning disabled child, I failed the 11+ and watched my sibling sail through the gates of a prestigious independent school. My parents were a teacher (at the same independent school) and an academic at the local university, I felt foolish and left out when each morning they journeyed together in the family car, while I took a long bus ride alone to a pretty rough comprehensive school which has since been razed. It taught me a great deal.
I know what it is to try and to ‘fail’ early in life. Bewildered by an exam I couldn’t decode, I couldn’t know at this time that the system was failing me. I look back now and see the system as failing many. Don’t get me started on education cuts and the news that some schools now have to close on Friday afternoons.
I remember smelling privilege at the independent school’s gates on the odd occasion I found myself there. I looked on and saw confidence and opportunity oozing from the very fabric of the building. I understood that I was an outsider, but could not have articulated it. The world inside this place simply felt intimidating and unreachable. A closed door.
Did I want to be part of this world? I really don’t remember, but I know I felt lesser. I didn’t discover the joys of study until I was 16, but then with my geek fully on I began to motor my way to university. It wasn’t plain sailing. I struggled greatly with my learning and will never forget the powerful knock back from a tutor in my second year at uni, who told me my work lacked the polish of my privately educated contemporaries (of which there were many studying history of art at this time!) Yes, this was 1982 and this conversation really did happen.
Red rag to a bull, I summoned my geek and got a first class degree.
I haven’t yet touched on how undiagnosed autism has impacted on my trajectory, nor the importance of a diagnosis in overcoming barriers. But I’ve written about this extensively on The Other Side.
My story is just one – of exclusion, and of pushing through. Each of the neurodivergent artists on my Arts Council Funded project, Neither Use Nor Ornament, (NUNO) will have their own story. On NUNO we are working to address the impacts of exclusion over a lifetime. It is very deep work indeed, which has required great thought and adaptations along the way.
Working responsively means that NUNO has had to change shape in the making. A fact of which I’m incredibly proud. I’ve observed that the neurotypical template for freelance project work seems to be that we must adapt ourselves to a pre-designed project. In this model the ‘project’s needs’ are paramount. NUNO turns this on its head. Artists needs are my first consideration and if I haven’t got that right I must adapt the project.
This process has taken place throughout and as we get closer to delivering our project I’m looking forward to the richness of the evaluation process.
I’m not blowing my own trumpet. Daily I give thanks to Arts Council England for backing the project so that I could work with 13 incredible artists across neurotypes. It is extraordinarily hard work to project manage, I often have to work against myself as so many tasks fall to me which require heavy duty admin, and that’s just not my forte. Next time can I have a PA please!
But we can’t wait to show you our work – it’s such a rich offer due to the wonderful NUNO artists whose object-based practices we are lucky enough to showcase. Bring it on!
Register FREE for our spring event at our Eventbrite page or just turn up! We’d love to see you.
Press release is on our website https://www.museumforobjectresearch.com/press/
