Contemporary Art as a Transdisciplinary Space for the Understanding of Autism and Cognition

Project Overview:
This project develops methodologies for an externally-funded transdisciplinary research project addressing the potential for contemporary art practices to broaden understandings of autistic cognition and support more inclusive public-sector provision. By positioning contemporary art methodologies within a transdisciplinary framework, it aims to generate communicative strategies that address representational gaps and enhance inclusive cultural, clinical, and policy practices.

Context:
Autism research increasingly challenges narrow biomedical framings. Neuroscientific studies (Kings College) investigate genetic and neurological mechanisms, while organisations such as Autistica focus on improving institutional support. The National Autistic Society (NAS) advances a ‘social model’ of disability and reconceptualises the autism ‘spectrum’ as context-dependent traits. Despite these developments, NHS provision for autistic adults remains limited and even chronic.

Attempts to improve autistic experiences of public services, such as healthcare passports [1], often remain shaped by what Chown [2] terms ‘neurotypical language games’. Humanities research highlights how autistic engagement in these ‘language games’ is frequently coded as dysfunction [3]. Contemporary art, by contrast, offers multimodal strategies—sound, image, poetics—capable of articulating complex cognitive and affective states. The project therefore considers how such practices can inform more effective languages of autistic experience and support inclusivity goals.

Methodology:
Two one-day workshops at Kingston University (January–May 2026) will refine aims and test methods: Languages of Care and Languages of Mind, Languages of Body. Each will identify stakeholder priorities, trial communicative approaches through an artist-led session, and conclude with a plenary. Participants will include artists, academics, postgraduate students, and public-sector stakeholders. Workshops will be hybrid, follow inclusive-event guidelines, and support continued dialogue through material and virtual activities. Outputs will be recorded on a Padlet site to inform the subsequent Catalyst Bid.

The project is grounded in disability-studies principles that resist narratives of tragedy and individualisation [3]. Team members include researchers with lived experience of autism and engage critically with insider positionality [4]. Inclusive facilitation and UKRI-aligned safeguarding measures will support participants’ communication needs, disability, and neurodiversity.

[1] See for example Ellis, R., Williams, K., Brown, A., Healer, E. and Grant, A., 2023. A realist review of health passports for Autistic adults. PLoS One, 18(9), p.e0279214; Walsh, C., O’Connor, P., Walsh, E. and Lydon, S., 2023. A systematic review of interventions to improve healthcare experiences and access in autism. Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 10(2), pp.185-202.
[2] Chown, N., 2020. Language games used to construct autism as pathology. In Neurodiversity Studies (pp. 27-38). London: Routledge.
[3] Rodas, Julia Miele. Autistic Disturbances: Theorizing Autism Poetics from the DSM to Robinson Crusoe. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2018.
[4] Garden,R.(2010).‘Disability and Narrative: New Directions for Medicine and the Medical Humanities.J Med Ethics; Medical Humanities.36:70-74, 74.
[5] Chavez,C.(2008).‘Conceptualizing from the Inside: Advantages, Complications, and Demands on Insider Positionality.’The Qualitative Report, 13(3),474-494.

Two one-day workshops will pilot the use of contemporary art as a mode of transdisciplinary research used to explore new ways to communicate autism and cognition. The difficulty neurotypical populations have in understanding autistic cognitive landscapes frames both populations as different species separated by a common language. This gap contributes to a persistent crisis of representation and citizenship for neurodiverse people and shortcomings in clinical practices and social care. The subsequent findings of these workshops will inform a subsequent AHRC funding bid that will seek to develop a set of visual and other non-verbal tools that can be used in a range of settings to communicate autistic cognition to professionals and non-professionals alike.