shy*play is a platform co-initiated by Aion (Aster) Arribas and Antje Nestel, focusing on doing neurodiversity not as a process of explanation, but as a relational practice in difference. We use art-as-process and (un)learning techniques with the aim of creating socialities with their own values, outside the workings of normality and identification. shy*play is hosted by DAS Research in Amsterdam
shy*play departs from the urgency to reflect and craft amongst the hindrances that the dominant pedagogical and art contexts and approaches have confronted us with: In our experience, neurodivergent expressions suffer under the regime of neurotypicality, which has become the standard method for institutional pedagogical and artistic experimentation and sociality formation. In response, this project asks: can neurodivergence be a means for creative and experimental sociality formation?
Contrary to neurotypicality’s demand for sameness, our experimentation with neurodivergence refuses to define it. Rather, we ask: What are neurodivergent tendencies that can serve as springboards to different sociality formations beyond neurotypicality? Answers to this question inform the creation of relational techniques which, in turn, perform as a means for pedagogical and artistic experiments in neurodivergent sociality. These techniques are the basis of multiple making-thinking pedagogical workshops and participatory events. Through these techniques, we hope to facilitate a spacetime where neurodivergence can exist outside the bounds of neurotypical hegemony, while exploring the potential of neurodiversity to create new ways of doing-together-in-difference.
shy.intro.play@gmail.com
Acknowledgements
Website design: nor akelei