Autism and the arts: making a space for different minds

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Rancid perfume. Stinky babies. Sweaty clothes. Garlic hair. Human bodies putrefying and I think my own is beginning to smell,” declares artist and researcher Dawn-joy Leong in her installation, An Olfactory Map of Sydney, at Customs House in Circular Quay.

At times confronting, at times funny, Leong’s graphic description of the assault of odours while travelling by bus forms a series of video monologues about her sensitivities to smells, sounds, light, colour, tastes and movement.

Leong is autistic and regularly feels overwhelmed due to hyper-sensory perception. This can trigger extreme reactions such as nausea, headache, vertigo and sometimes excruciating pain. Through Leong’s work, the viewer gets a real sense of how exhausting having such a heightened awareness must be, particularly in a world designed for “neurotypicals” – people who are typically wired or non-autistic.

I can’t breath. I’m feeling sick … Cacophony. Very dissonant. I’m terrified. The smells are mixing up and making my head hurt. I think I need to get off [the bus] right now.

An Olfactory Map (with Theodore Eu as video editor) is exhibited as part of The Big Anxiety, an initiative of UNSW and The Black Dog Institute. Through conversation, technology and art, the festival addresses issues of mental health, examining the major anxieties of our times, as well as the stresses and strains of everyday life.

Leong’s and other installations by autistic artists fall within the festival’s stream of Neurodiverse-City, which promotes an empathic culture of neurological differences (such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia or dyspraxia).

“Art is for all, and should be made accessible to all,” claims Leong. She says autistic artists have much to offer the neurotypical realm, including a more “aware” way of responding to the world and detail-focused perception.

Contrary to the erroneous neurotypical belief that autism is a barren landscape of isolation, the autistic mind is a thriving ecology teeming with abundant detail, nuances, texture, tastes, sounds, images, smells, profound thought and imagination.

Another of Leong’s works, Clement Space in the City, is a sensorial refuge for those wishing to escape the barrage of city life. Leong describes the “need for little pockets of grace in the midst of chaos” and the use of “conscious restfulness” as a coping strategy.

Rush Hour at Cloud Heaven is an animation, audio recording and series of printed works by collaborators Thom and Angelmouse. Thom Roberts, who is autistic, and Angelmouse (Harriet Body), who is not, have been collaborating for four years through Studio A, a social enterprise that supports artists with intellectual disability in their professional art practice.

Another installation that collaborates with autistic artists is the sensory landscape of Snoösphere at UNSW Galleries. It centres on the belief that stimulating the primary senses (under the right, therapeutic conditions) can ease anxiety. Drawing on research about cross-sensory perception, the space is primarily inspired by Dutch spaces used in mental health care and rehabilition, called snoezelen.

Shoes are left at the door at Snoösphere, while dim lighting, ambient music and tropical bird calls immediately indicate that this is a stress-free zone. It is a playful space where giant pink and purple balloons float over beanbags, and participants are invited to meander through strings of coloured lights, to walk on spongy mats, pebbles and fake grass, to pat vibrating, furry discs that vaguely resemble a science-fiction, birdlike creature.

Lull Studios’ Elena Knox and Lindsay Webb created Snoösphere in consultation with a team of artists. As autism consultant and associate artist, Leong worked with a team of autistic advisers aged ten to 35 years in Sydney and Singapore.

The Big Anxiety continues until November 11 in Sydney.