Accessible spaces removing Risk found in Neurotypical and Mainstream Situations

Creating conditions for people to grow, reflect, feel seen and heard not only as a human being but also an artist is Elinor’s mission for Magical Women.

For the Founder of Magical Women, when ND women artists are seen or heard or felt within their art practice, this only enhances the practices of everyone involved in Magical Women such as artists and consumers, customers and audiences. Collaboration can flourish and trust happens. Magical Women invites especially women artists to come together to trust, believe and make art together in held spaces. You can view the work they have done so far since March 2020, in our Artist Showcases, online exhibitions and workshops. We’ll be moving towards Podcasts and Vlogs and videos very soon.

Magical Women’s ND Model and the Dissemination of ND Systems, Structures and Thinking

This model has been enriched and drenched in the ND experience, the ND thinking style, Nancy Kline’s the Thinking Environment mixed in with Jung’s Collective Unconscious, alongside many great philosophers (see Theory) They offer us possibilities to think for ourselves as ourselves, have complete autonomy over ourselves whilst also growing and attending to our artistic practice and development together. By viewing our art differently, not as good or bad, but as what can be seen, heard, felt then this model of working to our senses means ND artists can develop and enrich their practice. We work to a ND model and a Magical Women model of the senses.

Using empowering spaces that remove the risk found in neurotypical situations such as urgency or rush or feeling or experiencing being rushed. Magical Women work to disseminating ND language, ND vocabulary and ways of working where they need never to feel they must change themselves, overcome their behaviours and instead, are liberated to behave and speak the ND way of existing. They are free to be themselves.

By challenging the status quo, all Magical Women participants, contributors, allies and in solidarity artists are free from the untrue assumptions, unconscious bias and discriminatory and harmful dialogue and structures used against ND populations.

Magical Women is not therapy, it does not create safe or inclusive spaces – because this incites exclusion for the ND artist – instead, it creates relaxed, accessible and empowering spaces for ND artists (mainly female) that remove risk typically found in neurotypical and mainstream spaces. for neurodivergent artists, mainly female. 

Using technology to meet access needs

The anxiety from communication and social interaction barriers result in exhaustion and burn out for many Neurodivergents including Elinor. Due to physical impairments and illnesses, Elinor cannot always access many spaces and uses technology as a means of creating access and making work. She has used Technology as an access tool to bring ND artists and writers together to make powerful and exciting work whilst sharing space to attend to their practice.

Even before Covid19 Lockdown, Magical Women were going to use technology to include ND writers and artists who are housebound or live too far from Battersea Arts Centre where they had received residency for their first year. They had asked specifically for a Tech during events to ensure all tech ran smoothly and Elinor was going to help with editing videos of ND women artists who because of childcare, relationship, distance or other barriers could not leave the house to attend the event but needed and wanted to be part of sharing their poetry and art with wider audiences.

Magical Women are therefore committed to using technology as a means of access to reach more ND artists whose barriers prevent them from accessing spaces to show, share and create.

Using Art as a tool for access to the arts and sustaining practice

Art is a tool that can gently bring this wisdom to the surface, guiding participants towards opportunities that are suited to their access and personal needs.  Transformations occur, in how artists approach and pay attention to their art practice, and theorise an absence of shame, fear or judgment. In turn, this presents an opportunity for audiences to witness a gentle unfurling of wisdom, strength, and evocative calling for a bolder voice. 

In workshops and online spaces, ND Artists are given complete autonomy over themselves and have already reported a growth in independence, art sales or a stronger awareness of their sense of self as an artist with a voice. Therefore, there is value in the model of online workshops and exhibitions, to be explored further in the future.

Magical Women’s Model of Attending to Practice 

If you visit our exhibition “My Release”, curator and artist Elinor explains why attending to your own practice in a shared space and then looking at each other’s art is so powerful. Instead of the experience of “Crit” like in art school where, often, feedback was unhelpful and did not support practice but often injured ND artists’ sense of purpose and self through ableist feedback and dialogue.

Instead, Magical Women gather to share the art they have made so far – pieces are often still drying and have not yet finished but symbols are beginning to appear and guide. ND artists are invited to say what they see in the art and these can help ND artists to create stronger imagery and enhance their creative process and arts practice. These symbols are what brings up the themes for the online exhibitions and ND artists and writers external to the workshops are invited to contribute work as well. 

Magical Women’s Commitment to Body Doubles

Body Doubles is an experience of many ND artists particularly in ADHD where they find it easier to stay focused on their art practice, housework, homework, bill paying, and other tasks when someone else is around to keep them company. The body double may just sit quietly. They may read, listen to music on headphones, or work on the task that the person with ADHD or other ND is working on. (Here at Magical Women we hold space like this for both artists and writers). Hard work or work in general is simply more fun when someone else is nearby.

A body double could be someone who lives with the person who has ADHD — a flatmate, partner, sibling, or parent. But for so many ND artists and ND writers, we often need other ND artists or ND writers to create art with. Depending on the task to be performed, the Body Double might be a friend, another person with ADHD or another member of Magical Women. Body Doubles can be helpful for completing tasks and attending to practice in a wide range of situations.

Magical Women uses the concept of Body Doubles when focusing on our art practice. It is easier to focus on our art and make our art when we are gathering and sharing space. Magical Women holds space to make this happen.

Magical Women aims to

1. Create relaxed spaces for Neurodivergent creatives to practise, without having to worry or limit their natural behaviours or tone of voice.

2. Develop creatives to become more confident in their practice and further their careers.

3. Promote the skills of ADHD/Autistic leaders in the arts and inspire other neurodivergent creatives to take leadership roles.

4. Pay our creatives for their contributions and share their inspiring work with wide audiences.

5. Facilitate collaboration of like-minded creatives.

6. Ensure access needs are met for all our workshops and events, promoting empowering and relaxed spaces for Neurodivergent women artists.

“We are not champions, we are not inspiring; we are artists who lack access, lack understanding and lack investment. We are ND and/or Disabled and/or Survivor Women artists who want to share our art with more diverse and wider audiences in accessible and relaxed spaces.  We would love your support to do that, and we would love for you to join us as we also transform your opportunities, and in turn, as a collective, we grow.”

Overarching Principle of Operation

Magical Women’s Artist Development works in the opposite way of many Artist Development programmes and this is because we are autistic/ADHD and Neurodivergent. (We sometimes separate the term Neurodivergent from the combination of Autism/ADHD because some of us identify as both or one or the other.) 

Magical Women examines the term “leadership” in the way Foucault did. We use Foucault’s theories on power and community to examine how we, a group of outsiders, could create an arts project by attaining complete autonomy over ourselves. Our goal is to share empowering and relaxed spaces with artists to focus on our art practice, and to develop our skills to promote our art practice together. 

Participation is a way of life; of seeing the world and being in the world, and it is a transformative concept (Ledwitt & Springweth, 2010). Magical Women is a relaxed space for Neurodivergents, who might not always have an official diagnosis but they have always felt an outsider artist, or they have been positioned outside looking in. 

If they cannot find a space, they will create their own. Park (2001) describes this action as reflective knowledge. Reflective knowledge, as defined by Park (2001), is a vital dimension of personal transformation. This personal transformation determines that the collective process will not evolve unless empathy persists. 

This is important because Elinor Rowlands – Magical Women offers the artists who contribute to the project payment for their art and words. She believes that it is not enough to simply platform artists but payment for their work is essential if the narrative of investing in the excluded is ever going to change.