I'm honored to share that my photograph Not Even If You Wanted To is currently on view at the Toledo Museum of Art in Disabled Women Make History (and Art), a collaboration with Disability EmpowHer Network. Check out all the information on that here.
Not Even If You Wanted To is part of The Latest explores the spectrum of this artist’s experience being a late diagnosed autistic woman and the evolving process of creating order and expression. There is deep ritual in being neurodivergent, in processing the happiness at the future ahead and the grief of a life passed by and in accepting your unique traits, while releasing internal and external ableism.
For so much of my life, I felt like I didn’t understand the social customs of the society that socialized me. Minnesota and the midwest as a whole has a fairly passive agressive communication approach, but if that were all, eventually I’d find the right decoder ring or social cipher and crack the code. When you’re autistic its more than that. It’s more than learning the rules and simple misunderstandings. Communication differences between neurodivergent culture and neurotypical culture create external barriers, often misunderstood through a one-sided deficit-based lens. This is known as the “Double Empathy Problem,” identified by researcher Dr. Catherine Crompton in 2020. This is a study that found that the social disconnect between autistic and non-autistic people is mutual, rather than a one-sided deficit.
For so much of my life I felt that I had “missed that day” when they went over all the things I was constantly missing, even though I rarely missed school. Or as if everyone is working from the same script and I didn’t get a copy.
When these differences go unrecognized, especially for late-diagnosed women like myself, it can create barriers, that are unseen and seemingly insurmountable. Being awarded my autistic diagnosis at 39 opened a world of understanding, an entry into a cultural community all its own, and new ways to approach communication. There’s no easy button that comes with diagnosis though. No one hands you the keys to the castle of understanding. I was given a list of books to read and sent on my way, but with time I am learning. And sometimes that learning comes with the acceptance.
The image I created reflects the invisible barriers many disabled people encounter, those moments when effort alone isn't enough because the obstacle isn't a lack of will or skill, but the reality of disability itself. A vintage telephone, historically built without dials to prevent outgoing calls symbolizes inherent systemic communication differences and the outstretched hand represents individuals searching for a cultural community that speaks their language. The use of purple symbolizes the luxury of communication and the seeming magic behind successful communication when you don’t understand you are autistic due to a late diagnosis.