This body of work was created during a period of research and reflective practice, for which I was awarded a grant by Creative Scotland’s Create:Inclusion fund in spring 2022. It culminated in an exhibition of a selected pieces in September 2023 at Glisk exhibition space, Burntisland, Fife.

I used several mediums, including handmade inks created from foraged botanic materials, commercial and handmade watercolours and inks, as well as pen, charcoal, fabric and text. Water-based materials allowed for ‘flooding’ and unexpected and self-resolved effects, and allowed me to develop techniques of ‘letting go’ while also making constant decisions.

wandering, ambiguity, fragility

During the 15 month period of research and practice development, I was pursuing a course of reading including poetry, philosophy, autobiography and literary theory: which eventually led me to the work of Martinique philosopher and writer Edouard Glissant, in particular his ‘right to opacity’ and writings on colonial theory which struck me as visiting some similar points of theory by autistic thinkers, but from a different perspective. His work chimed with the explorations I was making with my neuroponds and vessels series. The title of my exhibition at the end of the period ‘Across Their Many Islands’ comes from a conversation between Glissant and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist:

“These archipelagos must encounter each other because, across their many islands, interdependence and difference coexist – and, in this way, they carry the energy that is necessary for our whole globe, our whole world. We might currently believe that this energy derives from military or economic force, but that is not so. It lies in the ideas and the poetics of how we organise the world…They open us to a sea of wandering: to ambiguity, to fragility, to drifting, which is not the same as futility.”

I consider the work figurative, sometimes using vessel-like shapes, exploring porous boundaries between the individual and its surroundings, inter-relationships with each other, and inner complexities. They float alone, intertwined or in groups. In some I explored possible connection and disconnection based on expectations of what a neurology is ‘like’, ie between neurodivergent individuals and a neuronormative construction. Here I was reading Damien Milton’s theory, the ‘double empathy problem’ and the political analysis of Robert Chapman in their book The Empire of Normality. I was continually engaging with poetry, and listening to music while I worked, which I use in a ritualistic way to move me while I use fluid mediums and mark making.

Their creation includes inks made from plants foraged in marginal urban areas – pieces of land which are ex-industrial, and liminal in their state of danger from human development at any time – and from plants considered weeds and shrubs growing independently in nooks and crevices, not sanctioned or acceptable but habitually tidied away, cleared.

Work for the also project also included installation, assemblages, artist’s books and zines.

My interest is in transversal openings, gyres, hinges, connection and pattern. My readings were in the neurodiversity paradigm, process philosophy, complexity, and indigenous ontology and contemporary art. The dark side of exploring these interests is learning about human histories and realities of othering, eugenics and colonialism.

Reading, researching, dreaming…key texts

Neuroqueer Heresies: notes on the neurodiversity paradigm, autistic empowerment and postnormal possibilities, Nick Walker, Autonomous Press 2021

A Mismatch of Salience: explorations of the nature of autism from theory to practice, Dr Damien E M Milton, Pavilion Publishing 2017

Authoring Autism / on rhetoric and neurological queerness, Melanie Yergeau, Duke University Press, 2018

Letters to My Weird Sisters: on autism and feminism, Joanne Limburg, Atlantic Books London 2021

Autistic Disturbances: Theorising Autism Poetics from the DSM to Robinson Crusoe, Julie Miele Rodas, University of Michigan Press, 2018

Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism, Robert Chapman, Pluto Books, 2023

May Tomorrow Be Awake, Chris Martin, Harper Collins 2022

The Kissing of Kissing, Hannah Emerson (poetry), Milkweed Editions 2022

The Wanting Way, Adam Wolfond (poetry), Milkweed Editions 2022

podcast conversation between Katherine May and Bayo Akomolafe, How We Live Now

These Wilds Beyond Our Fences, Bayo Akomolafe, North Atlantic Books 2017

The Minor Gesture, Erin Manning, Duke University Press 2016

Out of the Clear, Erin Manning, Minor Compositions New York, 2023

Introduction to the Poetics of Diversity, Edouard Glissant, trans Celia Britton, Liverpool University Press, 2020

Archipelagos, Édouard Glissant and Hans Ulrich Obrist, trans Emma Ramadan, Isolarii, Common Era Inc 2022

Catnosat: Indigenous Art, Knowledge and Sovereignty, eds Liisa-Ravna Finbog, Katya Garcia-Anton, Beaska Niillas

Sami Art and Aesthetics: Contemporary Perspectives, ed Seven Aamold