“So, this is me trying to use words to describe my work which is about me not liking words. I realised early on that my best way of communicating, the language that I felt most comfor- table using, was images. But I also learned words early. I was so young that I almost don’t remember it, but I do remember lying on the floor of my room. I had green paper in front of me and then, all of a sudden, I started putting down words on it. “TL MAMA”. The reason why I was able to just put down words on my green paper, right then and there, was that I had been collecting all of them in my head before. Every day, my whole life, I captured the words and put them in my head as pictures. I traced the outlines of them with my finger against my leg.

To me words are images. You can’t speak images, but you can draw them. That is why I draw. I draw all the time. “

Every time I draw, I am wholly autistic. Every time I do anything, or don’t, I am wholly autistic.

We get functioning labels. Diagnostic criteria. A diagnosis on the autistic spectrum is only defined by medical terms and also only describes how the autistic person differs from the rest of society from a neurotypical point of view. It ignores the reality of the autistic’s experience. Experiences of autistic adults. Autistic women. Being an autistic person of colour.

Identifying as autistic is politically meaningful to me. But I lack autistic culture. I need the communal act of forming safe, separatist spaces for ourselves. This work aims to artistically portray autistic adulthood from an autistic point of view.