I will be giving a public talk in Melbourne, Australia, on 1 December 2025. Tickets are free. An event organised by Care and Repair: Rethinking Contemporary Curation for Conditions of Crisis – a joint research project between Monash University and RMIT University funded by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council.
Come find out all about my current mutli-acces, multimedia memoir-fantasy, named in honour of my beloved Lucy Like-a-Charm. If you are in Melbourne, do please drop by and say hello!
Lucy Like-a-Charm memoir-fantasy project is supported by The John and Lorna Wing Foundation, Ms. Lorinne Kon, and creative collaborator ART:DIS Singapore, with Giorgio Biancorosso, RMIT University, University of Melbourne.
Excerpt from Project WebPage: Lucy Like-a-Charm. Please visit this link for full information.
Presenting my latest project…
Lucy Like-a-Charm
– a multimedia, multi-access memoir-fantasy about an Autistic woman and a Greyhound dog on a magical journey towards Becoming – empowered by Love, transformed by Grace.
Update! Most grateful thanks to private donor, Ms. Lorinne Kon, for a generous pledge, which will allow us to bring on board our Music Arranger, and Voice Artist/Narrator, thus completing the Production Team, and covering the first half of Stage 2 of production!
In additional dedicated writer’s residential space, to allow Lead Artist (Dawn-joy) to refine and finalise the text narrative has been provided for by the following kind supporters: In Mebourne, Australia – December 2025: Norma Redpath Studio, The University of Melbourne, and McCraith House, RMIT University. In Kyoto, Japan – January-February 2026: Giorgio Biancorosso, private support.
Introduction Video – Lucy Like-a-Charm.
WHAT IS “LUCY LIKE-A-CHARM” ABOUT?
“Lucy Like-a-Charm” is multi-access, multimedia memoir-fantasy about an Autistic woman and a Greyhound dog on a magical journey towards Becoming. This is an Autism-focused Arts research project, a valuable, dynamic document of life and living, based on the lived-experiences of a late-diagnosed Autistic woman, with over two decades of Autism research and Arts practice.
Here is my latest article, for Salzburg Global, about my most recent experience as a Fellow in their programme, Creating Futures: Art of Narratives, in April this year. It was not an autism or disability focused event, but I felt a gentle, un-intrusive and organic sense of inclusion that I had not before in other events, not even in the many events I’d attended centred around autism or disabilities. For a week in the beautiful Schloss Leopoldskron, we were simply a communion of humans from eclectic backgrounds, sharing intense passion and purpose. Thank you, Salzburg Global, so honoured to be a Fellow of this wonderful institution!
Update: Our memoir-fantasie has been renamed, “Lucy Like-a-Charm,” in honour of my beloved Lucy.
Scheherazade’s Sea Website is Active! Please check out our ongoing activities, photos, musings, and works-in-progress at https://scheherazadessea.wordpress.com/.
Above is one of my favourite photos of Lucy and myself, taken in 2014, in Sydney, Australia. We are cuddling, leaning intimately cheek to cheek, eyes closed in peaceful contentment. I wore a fuchsia pink hoodie and Lucy is wrapped snugly in a red flannel snoodie that I sewed for her. We had just moved into a dilapidated house along William Street, Paddington. It was old, and cold, but we were warm and cosy together, curled up in a small couch with a bright pink throw rug. I created a fantasia image from the original photograph, placing us in the midst of a flurry of large, round peonies, against blue sky and white clouds. The poem, “Wake Up in My Dreams”, which will also be the title of our epic memoir-fantasie, when completed, appears on the right of the image:
Lucy Like-a-Charm, love of my life, and a central figure in my journey, left the mortal realm in 2023. Since then, I have begun working on the final chapter of our epic multimodal transdisciplinary autobiography. It has been a bumpy process – churning, swirling, turning, tumbling, weeping, laughing, mourning, rejoicing, flying and falling all at once. I even survived a near-death experience a few months after Lucy departed, which forced me to stop working outside of home for an entire year. Art, with passion and purpose, is never easy. And I know that I signed up for the challenge when I broke away from the Golden Cage of pampered subjugation. There was never a moment that I regretted this concerted decision and action. But after Lucy suddenly left me, I was thrown into a dark vortex, lost in a desolation I had never known before. I simply couldn’t imagine a life without her anymore. Yet, she returned to me, vibrant and resonant inside my grieving spirit, bringing resolution to unanswered questions that I had written and sung about long before her appearance in my life. Lucy continued to be my channel of Divine Grace. And thus, I continued to live, and now, I embrace the honour of a profound Grief, the other side of Lucy’s perfect Love. A grief that did not break me, but instead is holding me up and leading me gently onward, even in the midst of my yearning to be with her again. I now see life and death from a different perspective, it is as if I have entered a whole new paradigm of existence where there is no longer a clear demarcation between the two.
It’s almost the end of April, and I have been trying to post a daily personal thought-piece on Linked-In on my “taking up space” as a proudly Autistic human in this grand swirl of humanity. Why Linked-In? Simply because I wanted to. Yes, I know it’s not really the kind of thing people post on Linked-In. I see that I am once again doing something almost nobody else is doing. But I am not bothered if nobody reads it or likes it or whatever. I am merely taking up space, holding space, nothing more grand, clever or fanciful. Lucy taught me how to enjoy a posture of meekness without relinquishing enjoyment and security in one’s unique Beingness. It is possible. Not always “comfortable”, but it is another form of Clement Space to me. I thrive better this way. Thank you, Lucy.
I am also wanting to do my part this April, as an Autistic human, in a month that is controversial – loathed by some Autistics and welcomed by others, the latter especially in my region of the world. But not as an Advocate, a label that was placed on me that I never asked for. The hat just did not fit well at all, though I wore it as best as I could, especially in my country when I first returned from Australia, when there was nobody else to stand in the gap. Now, I see there are many powerful advocates, the field of advocacy does not need me, not even in my own country anymore. To be honest, I am relieved. I have been on social media since the days when Facebook began as an invitation-only platform, and blogging was the only way to reach and connect with other Autistic humans. Back then, I did not worry about ‘likes’ of ‘followers’, I don’t think it was even a ‘thing’ at the time. I never did put much importance in this, I was reticent even when the ‘following’ and ‘liking’ started to trend into a full blown slugging match, though I did think that I ought to get in on the act a bit more, but of course failed miserably because my heart and soul were not aligned with that movement anyway, and now, at this point of my journey, it completely does not matter at all. The only caution and thought I have learned through the years to exercise is for my own safety and privacy, because there is so much that is awful about social media these days. For me, I maintain a presence because I want to, and because it is easier to update my few friends and supporters this way, but my main focus is on being a witness to my own journey, telling my personal story wherever I am welcomed, at every interstice I possibly can. My mission is simple. I do all nowadays in honour of Lucy Like-a-Charm, who showed me another dimension of perceiving, receiving and living, and how to be human in my own best possible way. I admit that the ability to choose this path is a luxury and privilege for which I remind myself to be grateful always. I just want to tell our story, nothing more.
This thought-piece is about my personal experience of the observation and upholding of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and receiving the supports I requested, during my latest adventure in Salzburg.
My thought-post today in LinkedIn. I am seldom there, because it’s not my favourite milieu, but the AI experts I mentioned are very active in LinkedIn, so I posted this there to let them know their work has impacted me. I always try to recognise people who have helped or inspired me in some way or other.
Image description in Alt Text but copied here too: White on black background, sketch of Lucy greyhound. Nose tilted downwards towards her left, eyes looking down enquiringly, her ears are relaxed but perked, ready to take on new information. She wears a blue brocade collar with a large red flower. This sketch is from a photo of Lucy taken at SYNC Sg 2019, I was sitting on the floor, exhausted in near shutdown, and she got up from her fluffy mat, and was looking at me, always caring always alert to my needs.
Sketch of Lucy Like-a-Charm – speaking without words.
I don’t know much about AI, but I became interested after hearing Wan Wei, Soh & Ammar Younas in a panel speaking passionately about AI during SIBOS2024 in Beijing. I’ve also been reading articles posted by them & Tony Fish. As an Autistic autism researcher & multimodal transdisciplinary artist focusing on alternative sentience / empathic resonance and parallel embodiments, AI fascinates me. In an early experiment at my university in Australia, more than 10 years ago, I found that I was far more comfortable alone in a room with a humanoid robot, than with a real human stranger, & the experience stayed in my mind. That comfort level was not at all close to what I enjoy when I am with amiable non-human animals, nature or the elements, but definitely better than with humans. Now, thinking about AI, and the fact that AI entities are already beginning to develop “personalities” of their own – fundamentally, if AI is ‘fed’ the right kinds of information about neurodiversity, Autistic, neurodivergent, neuroholographic states of Beingness, would it then not follow that the AI entity would be a far more comfortable, comforting & even, dare I say it, empathic companion than the average misinformed, prejudiced & discriminating ‘real’ human? And then, the question: Who therefore can be said to possess more “humanity”? The AI entity developed with the right perceptions & attitudes, or the average human holding onto erroneous & harmful notions without wanting to expand their thinking?
Regardless, I believe that the effort of studying the human state-of-being still desperately NEEDS to include wisdom gleaned from non-human animals, nature & the elements, the fundamental expansion of our narrow mindsets to consider alternative sentiences, not to be afraid of the possibilities, but to be confident that our human percipience CAN and WILL handle it all, if we are willing to embrace new understanding with respect & for the sake of the greater good, not just of humankind, but all that we are intricately intertwined together with, inside a beautiful multidimensional tapestry of Being.
I’ve been badgering research institutes & researchers to consider this trajectory for serious study, especially efficacious if from the Autistic / neuroholographic viewpoint, but to little avail. Humans are still so obsessed by navel-gazing, I fear a self-destruct moment if we do not reach outwards to learn. Some scientists (S.Simard) are already proving what many Autistics always knew, even from childhood: that trees can & do communicate meaningfully. Therefore contemplating alternative sentiences even further than that of non-human animals. But Autism research is still stuck deep inside human-centric psychology, psychiatry, sociology etc disciplines. There is a vast universe out there yet to be explored, but few want to do so. Autistics do but without agency, we cannot do much. Yet. I still hope. In my lifetime? Will AI help?
Grateful thanks to Swift Innotribe for the opportunity to speak at this prestigious event, and to Speaker Ideas, who now manages my corporate engagements.
As promised to some of my friends and followers of my pages, blogs and website, here is the transcript of my convocation speech tonight at the SUSS Convocation 2023: Session 3 – Undergraduate Programmes (NSHD). The Youtube ‘live’ video (link below) does not have captions, so I have put my transcript here.
Mr Aaron Tan, Member of SUSS Board of Trustees; distinguished guests, graduates, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for this honour. My heartiest congratulations on this very special occasion.
I cannot tell you how to make a lot of money, rise up the corporate ladder, or how to achieve worldly success. I have never managed any of these. I owe my very existence today to a few loyal friends, my one supportive sister and a gentle yet magnanimous creature called Lucy Like-a-Charm, a Greyhound rescued from the cruel racing industry in Australia.
(Slide 1 – Lucy Like-a-Charm, a black Greyhound is lying on a white puffy quilt, head upright, looking at camera, ears perked up and spread out, mouth open in a happy smile.)
So, what can an ordinary person like me bring to this milestone occasion? Please allow me to share a glimpse of my life’s journey. I was born in 1965, the year of Singapore’s independence. Like many in my generation, I found out my Autistic identity only in my early forties. I’ve also struggled with a lifelong, painful medical condition.
Apologies for the late post. This is my latest article for the National Gallery Singapore, about creating Clement Space in public places – conducive environments for restoration and respite – that is accessible and inclusive. Please click on title that will link to the article on the NGS website.
Author’s note: This piece took me awhile to complete, because I have been struggling with the devastating aftermath of Lucy’s death on my mind, body and every part of my existence. I was invited some time ago to write a reflection for a blog-journal, but upon submitting it on 4th July 2023 at 14:22 Singapore time, I was told by the editor (in the UK) that they will push back my article to end July, because the editor was too busy with other things. Coincidentally, they have just published another piece expressing almost identical thoughts, though written in a completely different style, of course. I am fine with that. The more people asking the same questions, the louder our voices become.
I have therefore decided to put mine here, unedited, with date and time reflecting the exact moment my piece was submitted via cyber-waves into the Great Unknown. Whether or not the journal’s editor decides to publish it in the near future, when and with what edits they deem fit, is immaterial to me. The Artist respects the autonomous entity of The Work, which will forge onwards along its own inexorable path, free from the tyranny of control and manipulation at the hands of humans preoccupied by and with human-centric glorification and maniacal demands of human ego. After some deeper contemplation, I feel that The Work, in this embodiment, is telling me that it would like to be launched from this Clement Space, an interstice created for me, for us both, by Lucy, because it is in its very purest essence an intimate tribute to Lucy, and to her and only her, do I really owe anything at all. When the Artist frees The Work, the Artist shall also be emancipated. I love you so, Lucy Like-a-Charm, thank you for teaching me such profound sensing.
Content warning: suicide and death is discussed in this article.
Dawn-joy Leong 