Scheherazade of the Sea – ART:DIS+SWF

I always enjoy working with veteran director and theatre maestro Peter Sau, probably the only director in Singapore that I love working with, because he understands my artistic/creative foci and my needs arising from my disabilities.

Here’s a video clip of my performance at the Singapore Writers Festival 2022 presented by ART:DIS, directed by Peter Sau. Small bits of it have been edited out, but it’s mostly intact. Watch it on ART:DIS’ Instagram page. The beautiful soundscape is by the talented Niran Jierapipatanakul, intern at ART:DIS.

For those Deaf/deaf and hard of hearing, or those unable to make out the spoken word because of the echo in the soundtrack, here is the script. For the blind/visually impaired, the sharp sounds you hear intermittently are made by my placards of key words falling to the ground.


“Scheherazade’s Sea” is the main title of my series of autobiographical multisensory, transdisciplinary work. Scheherazade, the charming storyteller in the Arabian Nights fairytale, symbolises for me the Autistic woman in many ways: a young woman, betrayed and abandoned by her own father, handed over to an evil, violent monarch. Alone in a perilous situation, she must improvise, pretend, perform, weave compelling stories and tread carefully between reality and fantasy. Her life depends on it.

A similar conundrum faces the Autistic woman. Women throughout history have been exploited and subjugated. Autism is largely male dominated, Autistic women are a minority within a minority.

How may she survive intact, without parts of her integrity and selfhood being erased or broken? How much of myself is “I” and “me”?

I describe my struggle in this way: “Performing the unnatural as naturally as possible.”

Is it even possible, now, to separate “I” and “me”? Am I really Me? What if “I” is not “Me”? What if there is no more “I” or “Me”? 

Perhaps now, after 57 years, there is just “her”?
Scheherazade moves onward, inside her vast Sea. Regardless.

(A resonant, dark soundscape begins.)

Who am I?

I am…

Amazing.

Mundane.

Modest.

Haughty.

Compliant.

Naughty.

Generous.

Selfish.

Talented.

Inept.

Withdrawn.

Confident.

Enabled.

Disabled.

I am

Perpetually,

Consistently,

Instinctively,

Performing the unnatural

As naturally as possible.

But am I me?

And what,

Or who is 

A “me”,

Anyway?

This me…

Sucked into

Your orbit

Of deceit:

Tiny child,

Defenceless,

Gullible,

Trusting.

You said

You loved me.

You said

You’d take care of me.

And I believed you,

As you robbed

Of half a lifetime,

Both I and Me –

Manipulated,

Made your servant.

Trapped inside

Lavish, opulent

Golden Cage!

You the Mistress,

I subaltern.

Resplendent brilliance,

Fragile, broken body.

Hapless dichotomy,

Yearning to Become,

Mourning the loss

Of one

Called, “Me”,

A person I did not even know.

A soul longing to be free.

And then,

Staring into roaring Abyss,

Life and death

Called to me.

Choosing death

In order to live…

I caught a glimpse,

A fleeting vision,

Of Me.

“Run!” I whispered.

“Flee!” cried Me.

And so, I and Me together,

We did.

As far and fast

As we possibly could,

As you pursued.

Hell hath no fury…

Heaven hath no peace…

Now, you want to destroy me, because I dared to leave you?

I am Bunnyblu – naive child.

I am Little Duckling – innocence betrayed.

I am Mermaid – hungering, thirsting.

I am the Seer – watching, waiting.

I and Me, we are

Scheherazade of the Sea:

“Slave to no master,
Owned by none!”

I am Nothing, Nobody –

Yet Everyone lives in Me!


Snoösphere 2017 – call out!

Upcoming project: Call Out!

snoosphere

Snoösphere, 2017

Snoösphere 2017 – a multisensory experience with a focus on autism, featuring autistic creative partnership.

Lull Studios and UNSW would like to invite autistic persons of all ages to join us as creative advisors in designing a gallery-based art installation.

Snoösphere is a space made up of interactive sound, vision, aroma, and touch-controlled elements, in which people can roam and explore. It is an immersive space for promoting discovery, empathy and understanding of the spectrum of neurodiversity.

Named for the noösphere, which is the phase in the Earth’s evolution after the biosphere – a future planetary sphere of mind – the Snoösphere promotes embodied consciousness of the sensory and energetic properties and performance of physical space.

We see this as the especial province of autistic artists. Instead of being passive end-users, autistic participants are an influential part of developing Snoösphere, putting into practice the ethos “Nothing About Us Without Us.”

Dr. Dawn-joy Leong is the autism consultant for Snoösphere, personally facilitating the interesting and fun autism-friendly sessions.

Participants will experience creative engagement and learn about the process of building a multisensory interactive environment aimed at supporting the sensory needs of autistics. Contributions from our autistic advisors will be duly acknowledged in the final production.

Introductory consultation sessions and workshops for small groups and individuals (completely free) will be held 17-20 November 2016, at UNSW Art & Design, Paddington.

Please feel free to contact Dawn-joy for more detailed information, or to register your interest in becoming part of our project. Dawn will reply to emails promptly and no question is too trivial.

Email: dawnjoy@mac.com

Phone: 0477424585

Acknowledgements

2015-Sonata---Lucy-Sonorous-Repose

Sonorous Repose – Lucy Like-a-Charm 2015 by Dawn-joy Leong     (please do not reuse without seeking prior permission)

Dear Friends and Supporters,

We have made it! The PhD has passed muster and now it’s time for acknowledgements.

 —-

Scheherazade’s Sea – autism, parallel embodiment and elemental empathy.

 Dawn-joy Sau Mun Leong, UNSW Art & Design, April 2016

Dedication:

To my father, Dr. Leong Vie-Ying (1930-2007).

Acknowledgements:

This work would not have been possible without the following:

Deepest gratitude to my supervisors,

Professor Jill Bennett and Dr. Petra Gemeinboeck,

for your patience, guidance, advice, support, and for believing.

Thank you, Dr. Sally Clark, for your advice, encouragement and support.

My Lucy Like-a-Charm

My family:

Thank you, mother, Molly Chye Gek Ong, for your care and fortification.

My beloved baby-sister and faithful champion, Althea Leong,

thank you for always being here, there, and everywhere for me.

Dear brother-in-law, Robin Sing,

thank you for your patience, sustenance and unquestioning support.

My canine nephews, Bizcuit and Tiny Sing

Thank you, my friends who have played important roles in my journey:

Yee Sang, Ho

Rick Feedtime

Minh Vuong

Kateryna Fury

Colin G. Marshall and Misty Marshall

Shan Patterson and Sally Patterson

C.J. Wan Ling, Wee

Margie Anne Edmonds

Brad Beadel

Gavin Koh

Boon Ling, Yee

Shane Fenton

Andrea Kingan

Rosemary Wilkinson

and

Everyone who has walked a part of our journey alongside us, however briefly, every single moment has mattered.

The Big Anxiety Project

The-Big-Anxiety-Project.jpg

The Big Anxiety Project

The BIG Anxiety Project is an innovative citizen science venture developing creative approaches to health research and data visualization.”

Lucy and I are honoured to be a small part of this amazing project, which kicks-off on 5 June 2016, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 3-6pm, level 6, with this interactive talk-cum-discussion session.

Friends in Sydney, if you will brave the weekend’s wet and wild weather, please do join us at this interactive event.

If you are not in Sydney or unable to attend the above event, please take part in the Big Anxiety Project’s survey on anxiety at the Black Dog Institute: click here!

Autism and me: a lifelong quest for Beingness and Clemency of Being

Autism and me: a lifelong quest for Beingness and clemency of Being.

Guest lecture, 27 August 2015, School of Education, UNSW, Australia.

Thank you, Dr. Iva Strnadova, for inviting me to deliver this guest lecture since 2012. It has become an annual event I look forward to greatly.

I promised Iva I’ll tell as many personal stories as possible within the time limit, and so I shall. But before I launch into the dramatics, I’d like to begin with some basic terminology.

When I first began on my research journey, I adopted the prevalent deficits-focused, pathological perspectives and terminologies, because that was all I knew at the time. However, I henceforth prefer to use the term “Autism Spectrum Condition” instead of “disorder,” because this better describes the neurological culture that autism actually is. I also no longer use functioning labels – “high” or “low” functioning – as they are not only insulting to autistic persons, but more importantly they are based on a system of measurements that does not properly respect the innate autistic functional modalities and paradigms.

Now for my fabulous stories. Continue reading

Scheherazade’s Sea – autistic parallel embodiment and elemental empathy

Paper presented at UNSW Art & Design Postgraduate Conference, 17-19 June 2015.

——

My Ph.D dissertation, tentatively entitled, Scheherazade’s Sea – autistic parallel embodiment and elemental empathy, is part of a protracted journey in search for Being: a detailed study of Self and Other, and examination of multidimensional interstices of dynamic, interactive reciprocities.

This research and practice rests upon three fundamental concepts:

  1. Parallel Embodiment,
  2. Endeavour of Empathy, and
  3. Space of Mind, from which emanates Elemental Empathy.

The theoretical foundation for this work is constructed from documented studies in neuroscience, anthropology, the arts and humanities, and personal anecdotal evidence from autistic individuals. At the same time, my artistic practice acts as concretising agency by creating experimental ‘sharable’ spaces that serve not merely to display autism but to invite dynamic, personified communion; connecting individuals across neuro-functional divides. Continue reading

Confronting the Invisible

IMG_7299lucy-#1

Guardian Angel

This is a musing about confronting, and the confrontation of invisible disability.

What happens when the invisible is confronted in a stark and abrupt instant?

A recent encounter inside the lift on my way up to my art studio brought me once more, eyeball to uncomfortable eyeball, with the conundrum of ‘framing’ an invisible neurological difference. In my case, it is autism – and this is an issue that autistics living in the normative realms are constantly faced with, because we exist and function in the midst of, and juxtaposed with, the ‘normalcy’ of neurotypical constructs and systems. Continue reading

Thinking Through The Body – a multimodal approach from autism

Paper presented at the International Conference for Research Creativity: Praxis, Baptist University of Hong Kong, 21-23 November 2012.

 

ABSTRACT

How should the artist approach practice and research without becoming so overly abstract that the grounded, proprioceptive concreteness of art becomes mired inside oppressive, draconian intellectualism? The reciprocal processes of researching artistic practice and practicing artistic research require actively synergetic, symbiotic sensory and cognitive engagement, the interaction and inter-reaction of the bodily senses with theoretical, philosophical insight and invention.

Sensorial contemplation, that is, “thinking through the body,” is an inherent trait of Autism Spectrum Condition. How do autistic sensory, proprioceptive and cognitive idiosyncrasies affect creative motivation and process? May the model of autism inspire a fresh perspective for research and praxis? As an artist with Autism Spectrum Condition, the aims of my paper are to provide an ‘insider’ view of how sensory and cognitive idiosyncrasy shape my creativity, and using the autistic body-mind model, suggest an alternative milieu for creating visionary collaborative research, and mutually empathic platforms. Continue reading