This is an exhibition about ability. Over the years I have had the pleasure of working with artists, curators and colleagues who are truly exceptional. And also often truly dyslexic, dyspraxic, autistic, ADHD, face blind, the list goes on. For any problems it might cause them I believe that they couldn’t have achieved what they have without it. Some of you have been reading my texts for ten years now. Yes, this is the ten year anniversary of Copperfield so this time its personal. You might have noticed a few typos here and there that the spell checker does not...
This is an exhibition about ability. Over the years I have had the pleasure of working with artists, curators and colleagues who are truly exceptional. And also often truly dyslexic, dyspraxic, autistic, ADHD, face blind, the list goes on. For any problems it might cause them I believe that they couldn’t have achieved what they have without it.
Some of you have been reading my texts for ten years now. Yes, this is the ten year anniversary of Copperfield so this time its personal. You might have noticed a few typos here and there that the spell checker does not catch, but to be honest it is only in the last years that I realised my mind simply doesn’t work like other peoples. It does a lot more than just make typos in exhibition titles.
If you are not neurodiverse you might not know a lot about it. Here are some things that might surprise you; among those in this show alone there are those who can persuade you of anything, those who can fully map a new city in their mind on the first visit, those who can focus not just for hours but for days, those who can 3D render in their minds, those for whom even numbers have a colour.
In spite of this, some of these people were called ‘stupid’ as a children and have internalised it. It lives with them now even as they open museum solo shows to applause, give talks, answer press questions. In fact it is the heightened senses, the unusual thought patterns, the idiosyncrasies that give them the capabilities that have got them where they are today – but not everyone can take it. Many of them have spent years trying to work within a one size fits all framework, contorting to fit the mould.
From emerging artists to Turner Prize nominees, all of the artists in this exhibition celebrate the strengths they recognise in neurodivergent people without sugar coating the hardships, but not everyone in this exhibition is neurodiverse. Afterall, no one likes to be put in a box so we haven’t made one.
If u lyke u cun also reed this press relees foneticly at the exhibishun. The way it shud be ritten if our langwidg was logical.
I want to marry my spell checker.
