Exhibition text – Augustiana
By Lise Tovesdatter Skou
The old Chinese proverb A HUNDRED (DIFFERENT) FLOWERS ARE IN FULL BLOOM suggests an understanding that each individual radiates in their own unique presence in the world. This idea has inspired my artistic practice. Over the past years, I’ve been deeply engaged with the topic of neurodivergence, with a particular focus on autism.

My interest stems from a personal story. When a family member is diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, it begins a long (and painful) journey of learning to navigate a world not designed for you. It’s a journey into a silent and chaotic land, where the whole family must learn to navigate, communicate, and build relationships in ways we were never taught within the neurotypical society we grew up in and were shaped by.

This learning also brings grief — when we realize that the biggest challenges do not lie in the cognitive divergence itself, but in how our differences are viewed as something that needs fixing, correcting, or normalizing.

In my work, I seek to highlight the value of autistic ways of being. I aim to question classical psychological and autism research, particularly that based on the WHO’s international diagnostic system (ICD-11), where autism is defined as a “disorder” and a lack — of narrative structure, coherence, rhetorical ability, self-reflection, and the capacity to understand others.

I’m inspired by the French pedagogue Fernand Deligny, who, from the 1950s until his death in 1996, established a collective for children and young people with autism. Deligny rejected classical psychiatric thinking about autism as something that should be fixed or normalized. He didn’t try to change the children to make them fit in and live up to societal expectations. His work was based on the assumption that it is not the autistic individual who doesn’t fit in, but rather that the problem lies in the neurotypical structure of society itself.

In the spirit of Deligny, I aim to explore autism as an identity — neurodivergence — and as an equally valid way of being in the world.

Through this exhibition, I reflect on themes that have challenged my family’s life: social expectations and demands (Hall I), non-verbal communication (Hall II), and the need for withdrawal and opting out (Hall III).

It has been a years-long, intense struggle to find solid ground, to find a language and space for silence and recovery — to find strategies that make an equal existence possible. I’ve come to see that neurodivergence must be understood as part of a broader biodiversity. As one variant among many, all of which have a place and a purpose, so that we may bloom and grow and create a more sustainable future — and so that we may survive as a species.