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Neurodivergence through Art

, –
  • Free
  • Discussion
  • British Sign Language interpreted
  • Speech-to-text
  • Relaxed
  • Wheelchair accessible
A person sitting in a relaxed space, holding a microphone while looking at a artwork in their other hand.
Discussion in the Reading Room, Inés Yearwood-Sanchez. Source: Wellcome Collection. Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

What you’ll do

Join educator and facilitator F. Zeeshan Choudhury in conversation with artist and activist Nicola Field and Grrrl Zine Fair founder and artist Lu Williams to explore the role of art in shaping, revealing and validating neurodivergent experiences.

Art can express sensory and emotional experiences that clinical language often cannot, and for many neurodivergent people, creative practice can surface sidelined truths and open space for new kinds of understanding.

This conversation may touch on topics of ableism, systemic bias and trauma.

There will be an opportunity for audience participation. You can choose to listen, ask questions or share your thoughts – whatever feels right for you.

If you want a break from the activities, you can head to our Chill-Out Room to lie down or relax. There will be low lighting, comfortable seating, cushions, mats, ear defenders, earplugs and sensory toys.

Once the event ends, you’re welcome to stay and chat with the team about how we choose what goes into our collection and how neurodivergent experiences appear within it. You’ll also have the chance to make something from a table of mixed materials that responds to the ideas you’ve heard.

Dates

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Check for tickets

Tickets via Eventbrite

Need to know

Location

We’ll be in the Reading Room on level 2. You can walk up the spiral staircase to the Reading Room door, or take the lift up and then head left from the Library Desk.

Place not guaranteed

Booking a ticket for a free, in-person event does not guarantee you a place. You should aim to arrive 15 minutes before the event is scheduled to start to claim your place. If you do not arrive on time, your place may be given to someone on the waiting list.

Waiting list

If this event is fully booked, you may still be able to attend. We will operate a waiting list, which opens 30 minutes before this event starts. Arrive early, and we’ll give you a numbered ticket. If there are any unfilled places just before the start time, we will invite you to enter in order of ticket number.

British Sign Language interpreted

This event will have British Sign Language interpretation.

Speech-to-text

This event will be live-transcribed. The captions will be displayed on a screen in-venue.

Relaxed

This is a relaxed event, which means that if you need to, you are welcome to move around and make noise at any time.

Wheelchair accessible

This event is wheelchair accessible, which means people in wheelchairs can access the location with relative ease.

For more information, please visit our Accessibility page. If you have any queries about accessibility, please email us at access@wellcomecollection.org or call

Our event terms and conditions

About your contributors

A person with long dark hair wearing a dark top is photographed in front of a softly lit golden curtain background. They are faintly smiling and looking to camera.

F. Zeeshan Choudhury

Facilitator

F is a facilitator who uses creativity to foster radical wellbeing. Her research and practice finds meaningful ways for people to question injustice and imagine new futures. She is an advocate for hyper-local community engagement, and runs community groups in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, including the Writer’s Circle at The Common Press in Shoreditch, and Writing to Uncover The Self at St. Margaret’s House in Bethnal Green. Her latest project, Forming New Folklores, imagined new ways of cross-cultural storytelling between the UK and Bangladesh. 

A person with shoulder-length, wavy hair, wearing a light pink, semi-sheer top, positioned in front of a wall with colourful artworks and posters.

Lu Williams

Artist

Lu is an artist and Grrrl Zine Fair founder exploring queerness, neurodivergence and working‑class identity through research, collaboration and collecting. Their work celebrates the overlooked and questions hierarchies of value. They founded Grrrl Zine Fair CIC in 2015, a platform for self‑publishing and DIY feminist culture, and established the Grrrl Zine Library in 2017, now home to over 1,500 queer feminist zines at The Old Waterworks in Southend.

A person with short, wavy, dark hair, wearing a bright top, is smiling to camera and positioned in front of a wall with colourful framed artwork.

Nicola Field

(she/they)
Artist

Nicola is a writer, researcher, artist, socialist activist and AuDHD autotheorist. Her creative, political and arts writing has been widely published across left-wing, LGBTQ+ and alternative media. Her book ‘Over the Rainbow’ was published by Dog Horn Publishing. She is currently completing a multidisciplinary, practice-led PhD at Kingston University, exploring on the politics and poetics of complex PTSD.

Michelle Wood

British Sign Language interpreter

Michelle has been a qualified British Sign Language Interpreter for over 20 years and has been working with the Wellcome Collection for the last 10 years. She loves being a small part of the team who ensure that the Deaf Community have full access to what, in her view, is one of the best places in London. NRCPD no: 1009790.