Neurodiversity as golden

Swansea's Elysium Gallery is hosting two interlinked exhibitions celebrating neurodiverse creativity, resulting in a show of great diversity and insight, writes Jenny White

- Jenny White

UNITING a diversity of media, from video to mask-making and from painting to photography, the current dual exhibitions at Elysium Gallery in Swansea place work by neurodivergent artists centre-stage.

Gallery 1 hosts Voices from the Outskirts, an exhibition of new work by neurodivergent artists, while Gallery 2 hosts work created by neurodivergent artists as part of Elysium’s Connect & Flourish project.

Voices from the Outskirts showcases artists and writers who identify as neurodivergent, while the Connect & Flourish show exhibits the results of a project in which three Swansea groups - ASDES (Autism, Skills, Development & Employment Support), Gower College, and life skills development service Shine Cymru - worked to enable neurodiverse people to tell their stories through art via workshops.

Connecting the two exhibitions is Laura James-Brownsell, a neurodivergent artist and writer who works for ASDES and who decided to create Voices from the Outskirts as a platform for neurodiverse people to express themselves.

"There are autistic people who struggle to communicate or use sign language, or their vocabulary is very limited, and they are just ignored," she says. "I have a speech impediment, and even today, people can still ignore me or laugh at me when I say something."

Chosen from the result of a national open call-out, each artist has created work that explores and expresses their sensory, emotional, psychological or physical experiences as neurodivergent people.