Stepping Into Ourselves

Laura and Nikki warmly welcome you to this corner of FaB. We are both late-identified and diagnosed autistic/neurodivergent folk, who have found the process of recognition and diagnosis to be transformative in our sense of self-awareness and self-actualisation.

Processing territory within ourselves which for many years has felt like a place of wrongness or inconvenience, through a lens of understanding and care has been profound in creating space to be visible and celebrated.

We invite people who have experienced a later in life (18+) diagnosis or realisation of autism and / or other neurodivergent condition/s to explore their process and share the impacts that such life-changing information can have on identity, through art and making.

Through the enquiry and process of unraveling (masked) past identities the deconstruction, rebuilding & making sense of authenticity are called into focus. In exploring these aspects of self, are they fluid or rigid, permeable, malleable, ephemeral, loose, hard, tight, enlightening, empowering, or more debilitating, restrictive, enclosed, more ‘dis-ordered’?

What does radically accepting oneself look like, and in the context of community beginning with self; Alongside physical space, how does this extend to your wider world? To intentionally examine the subconscious processing of this very personal shift both internally and externally feels like a joyful, risky, and authentic celebration of the practice of un-masking.

Stepping into action around deconstructing internalised and external ableism and barriers is ongoing work. Therefore, from our perspective as autistic people, creating a corner of Fringe Arts Bath with the lived autistic experience at its core would be a radical act within creating community and inhabitation of external spaces.

Curated by Nikki Hatchett and Laura Calvert

This corner of FaB is made up of two friends. We are both artists and mums and are both diagnosed / identified Neurodivergent / Autistic later in life.