Raining on Rain Man: why and how autistic people can be creative

Back in 2015, professors at both the University of Stirling and the University of East Anglia concluded that people with autism excel in creative thinking, largely because they come up with novel and unusual ideas and tend to think outside the box. To most autists, that latter statement is an obvious one – after all, autism is inherently about thinking and processing differently. For textile designer Gaelle Chassery, it means being a learn-by-doing type: “Learning through traditional means is impossible for me. I tend to pick things up intuitively, improvising without support or guidelines, teaching myself by experimenting and coming up with a unique way of doing things.”

Many of those that I’ve interviewed for this piece have spoken about how they create because they have an innate need to create. Painter Ailsa Turner-Gibb states: “I'm a painter because I'm painting or thinking about painting, not because my paintings exist. What matters is that I've expressed something, learned something, expelled enough brain ants to do housework later.” Meanwhile, illustrator Sarah Barnard found herself unable to relate to fellow participants on an arts residency due to her “interest-first” approach: “I use art as a tool to explore my special interest (polar exploration), as opposed to making art purely to make art.”

For illustrator Ananya Rao-Middleton, being both autistic and chronically ill affects her practice “in a lot of different ways”. Having graduated from a history degree and working under management in various other industries afterwards, being her own boss has helped her in certain regards. “Something that has given me a lot of freedom has been the ability to choose to be a freelancer, and think about how I need to structure my work, my day and my projects based on being autistic and needing that extra level of time management and consideration for energy.”

Like others I spoke to, Libby is a member of the Nouk Collective, a Scottish arts collective made for and ran by neurodivergent creatives. The collective’s authenticity and initiative proves a stark contrast compared to other organisations that treat neurodivergent creativity as something only to be exercised within “empowering” workshops no different from an after-school activity or a 5 Rhythms dance class.

The 1940s art brut movement was figureheaded by Jean Dubuffet – an art school dropout who believed that those who didn’t seek a traditional route into arts were on an equal, if not superior, footing to those who did. Even then, it wasn’t perfect – many works in his Collection de l'art brut are by those whose voices were at best, lost to time; at worst, suppressed. But, within the context of neurodivergency, how can the artistic landscape of those from non-typical routes go from celebration of non-academic perspective and focus on reality, to inspiration-porn weekly workshops that culminate in a pat-on-back group exhibition, where the neurotypical organisers preface the work with a statement about “brave” pupils being “special” for having “potential” just for making artwork, in a way especially infantilising for those with high support needs?

“A bit of eccentricity is allowed in an artist more than in other occupations, but only as long as it is entertaining and easily understood,” comments Ailsa. “Anything beyond a surface otherness quickly becomes more work than you are ‘worth’.” Even when autistic creatives can advocate for themselves, there’s always the pressure of putting on an ever-draining mask of neurotypicality, or at least a “quirky” dilation of self, as a way to validate autonomy and self-advocacy, and avoid the demeaning passive-aggression of typical allistic (non-autistic) treatment. “You can be cute and whimsical and strange as long as it’s not too loud or abrasive or inconvenient for this nice, professional setting. Hilarious, considering how loud, abrasive and inconvenient many of us find that setting to be!”

Similar concerns are raised by Alfie White, a photographer and filmmaker “acutely aware” of their privilege as someone whose low support needs give them a sort of “invisibility” within autistic circles, yet whose mindset can regularly inconvenience allistic people in industry. They point out systemic ableism’s role in creating obstacles: “The detriments I can separate from that and scrutinise are those ultimately caused by other people, from the systems we exist in, ableism, and the stigma around autism. In that sense, I am able to see very clearly this tug of war of these two ends, and how easy it would be to let go of the detriments in return for letting go of something larger – my business, I suppose. I know that I have been in environments where my autistic brain cannot recognise the invisible social structures that are being upheld, and I have said or done the wrong thing. Sometimes, that is just asking ‘why?”

The natural out-of-box thinking from my interviewees proved a great showcase for unexpected questions. Living outside of a major city and finding driving a sensory nightmare, Ailsa asks: “Can we expand our ways of ‘exhibiting’ and sharing our work somewhere between traditional galleries and Instagram feeds?” Sarah also has her thoughts on the lack of straightforward communication when applying for arts funding: “Just answering the questions in a concise, logical way isn't good enough. I’ve looked at examples and it seems to be one of those ‘it's not what you say, it’s how you say it’ things which makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.”

Broadly, Ananya envisions a creative world that embraces disability justice: “What I really love about disability justice is that it argues for creating a society that benefits the most marginalised of us, understanding that we can’t view disability/neurodivergence in a vacuum, as a singular thing. It intersects with race, class, gender, how they all interact as systems and how people have identities spanning [them].”