Bio

Dorothea Deli (any pronouns) is a cultural analyst, curator and neurodiversity activist. She is autistic and has ADHD. She has academic degrees in psychology, art history, cultural analysis and gender studies. Her professional experience spans across jobs at Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Stapferhaus Lenzburg and her own collaborative off space Kein Museum in Zurich. Currently she is working on her own project “Doing Neuroqueerness”, which deals with neurodiversity and autism in particular from a philosophical and critical disability studies perspective. Her artistic practice lies within sculpting, drawing, painting and installation projects.

Artist Statement

My art revolves around what I call the autistic bodymind. It’s about how my idiosyncratic kind of subjectivity cannot function oblivious to the body. My body is very sensitive, it insists, it changes how I think, feel and perceive. The Cartesian distinction between body and mind makes no sense to me. Conceiving of body and mind as connected in my art practice also means that I do not orientate myself on purely mental symbolic identity markers, but much rather on mental-material interdependencies, potentials and possibilities to be connected with other living beings, impressions and emotions.

Why MW is important:

For me, Magical Women is important, because being autistic or disabled in general means to be excluded from so many possibilities and from vital connections with community. Magical Women created their own community, which is essential to have to be able to thrive. Being part of a safe community is being given an opportunity to express themselves and in this way to be able to participate in something greater. Self-expression generally still follows neuronormative pathways and is thus exclusive towards neurodivergent people, yet self-expression is the key to connecting with other people and a life worth living.