Fieldlab 1, February 17, 2025
by Anna Lina Litz
One poet, one professor, and twelve autistic artists walk into a room to test writing exercises for special education.
What do you get?
Something that feels contagiously like home.
Why is that?
Well. Allow me to explain:
1. Because it is somebody’s home, as well as an office. Next to a long desk/dining table, there are two cats, a spiky plant, a toothbrush, books and records. Artistic Research Studio is a lived-in workspace, three-quarter renovated and exuding creative chaos. That is precisely why it facilitates outspoken participation: You are welcomed here as you would be at an art friend’s house: No one is more important than anyone else. Come in, sit anywhere. There are various tables, benches, stairs, designer chairs, or maybe you prefer the floor?
2. Because many of these artists have sat at our table before. We used to share food and discuss how to create while surviving and perhaps even thriving mentally, physically, economically, socially — I know their stories of burnout, pouring their souls into the uncertainty of project proposals and funding applications, struggling to network, wrestling with the marketing and business-owner side of creative professionalism, procrastination and its opposite: forgetting to eat, drink, move for ours in hyper-focus. We all know the good work, the bliss, the awkwardness, the doubts and the loneliness.
3. Because writing is a kind of home, too, and the poet knows it very well: “Writing has to come from your position in the world”, he says, “From your brain and your heart and your society.” It comes from your position in the world, but also reinforces it; writing can anchor you. We are here to help autistic students in special education make a home for themselves in the world through writing, that’s why I use the word “contagiously”. The artists approach this with authentic earnestness, sharing the mechanisms of their minds openly, and the poet and the professor listen as openly as they can.
I am paraphrasing, but the first exercise went something like this: To accurately answer the plain old question “How is it going”, you’d need thousands of words, and yet people mostly answer “fine”, or “good”. This exercise is meant to help you formulate an answer to the question, so that when a friend or family member asks you, you can say something meaningful. Write a sentence about how your body feels right now, and why, and if it’s good or not so good. Then think of something you experienced earlier today, add a sentence about that. Connect the sentences with each other, play with connecting words and the different meanings they add.
Go!
This morning I sat in a zoom call to help determine
whether my partner has ADHD
I was short of attention
but now I feel words
in my fingers, so —
fine.
Most of the new Schrijflab.nl exercises we tested similarly deal explicitly with social situations and using language as a tool to navigate them: People often speak in riddles. Try writing sentences that mean the opposite of what they say. Somebody told you that you did something wrong. Make a table of adjectives and their opposites, happy-sad, polite-rude, short-long. Pick a few words from your list and formulate a response in that tone of voice.
The question “What is this exercise for? What is the purpose of it?”, came up during every feedback round: Is this meant to teach us social skills or writing skills? What if I wanted to write about gardening, space exploration or my grandmother and not the endless, frustrating at best and triggering at worst, issue of how to talk to other human beings? It’s still possible, and can actually be combined somewhat seamlessly with the format of the first exercise —
This morning I re-potted tomatoes with my grandmother
we loudly discussed the space-time-continuum
so now I have a sore throat
and I feel inspired
But it also scratches at the wound of feeling strange and different and being approached from an angle of “let’s learn how to mask”, a few of the artists pointed out. Jenny Konrads, self-described multisensory translator of information, who is fully at home in carving out a life that respects their neurodivergent needs, joys, cravings and crises, suggested: If you are using writing exercises for social training, it can be a chance to understand that communication styles are different, not better or worse, just different. It can be fun to learn a different way of communicating, like learning a new language. You may even connect to the sensations in your body by way of writing. But please don’t mask yourself on the page. “Yes and thank you”, agreed acclaimed writer of “The Big Autism Book”, Erik Jan Harmens, whose work served as inspiration for the exercises. “If possible, I would like to be myself. I’m not so interested in adapting.” Approaching writing as a way to explore difference without valuation could do a world of good, we concluded. Apart from this, concise, clearly-structured and open-ended exercises about anything — dancing, describing a person, space exploration, grandmothers, etc., were enthusiastically welcomed, and discussions continued over excellent home-cooked lentil soup and far into the night.
https://www.michahamel.com/
https://schrijflab.nl/
Micha Hamel and first participant ringing our doorbell for the first Fieldlab ;-)
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Impression Fieldlab 1
One poet, one professor, and twelve autistic artists walk into a room to test writing exercises for special education.
What do you get?
Something that feels contagiously like home.
Why is that?
Well. Allow me to explain:
1. Because it is somebody’s home, as well as an office. Next to a long desk/dining table, there are two cats, a spiky plant, a toothbrush, books and records. Artistic Research Studio is a lived-in workspace, three-quarter renovated and exuding creative chaos. That is precisely why it facilitates outspoken participation: You are welcomed here as you would be at an art friend’s house: No one is more important than anyone else. Come in, sit anywhere. There are various tables, benches, stairs, designer chairs, or maybe you prefer the floor?
2. Because many of these artists have sat at our table before. We used to share food and discuss how to create while surviving and perhaps even thriving mentally, physically, economically, socially — I know their stories of burnout, pouring their souls into the uncertainty of project proposals and funding applications, struggling to network, wrestling with the marketing and business-owner side of creative professionalism, procrastination and its opposite: forgetting to eat, drink, move for ours in hyper-focus. We all know the good work, the bliss, the awkwardness, the doubts and the loneliness.
3. Because writing is a kind of home, too, and the poet knows it very well: “Writing has to come from your position in the world”, he says, “From your brain and your heart and your society.” It comes from your position in the world, but also reinforces it; writing can anchor you. We are here to help autistic students in special education make a home for themselves in the world through writing, that’s why I use the word “contagiously”. The artists approach this with authentic earnestness, sharing the mechanisms of their minds openly, and the poet and the professor listen as openly as they can.
I am paraphrasing, but the first exercise went something like this: To accurately answer the plain old question “How is it going”, you’d need thousands of words, and yet people mostly answer “fine”, or “good”. This exercise is meant to help you formulate an answer to the question, so that when a friend or family member asks you, you can say something meaningful. Write a sentence about how your body feels right now, and why, and if it’s good or not so good. Then think of something you experienced earlier today, add a sentence about that. Connect the sentences with each other, play with connecting words and the different meanings they add.
Go!
This morning I sat in a zoom call to help determine
whether my partner has ADHD
I was short of attention
but now I feel words
in my fingers, so —
fine.
Most of the new Schrijflab.nl exercises we tested similarly deal explicitly with social situations and using language as a tool to navigate them: People often speak in riddles. Try writing sentences that mean the opposite of what they say. Somebody told you that you did something wrong. Make a table of adjectives and their opposites, happy-sad, polite-rude, short-long. Pick a few words from your list and formulate a response in that tone of voice.
The question “What is this exercise for? What is the purpose of it?”, came up during every feedback round: Is this meant to teach us social skills or writing skills? What if I wanted to write about gardening, space exploration or my grandmother and not the endless, frustrating at best and triggering at worst, issue of how to talk to other human beings? It’s still possible, and can actually be combined somewhat seamlessly with the format of the first exercise —
This morning I re-potted tomatoes with my grandmother
we loudly discussed the space-time-continuum
so now I have a sore throat
and I feel inspired
But it also scratches at the wound of feeling strange and different and being approached from an angle of “let’s learn how to mask”, a few of the artists pointed out. Jenny Konrads, self-described multisensory translator of information, who is fully at home in carving out a life that respects their neurodivergent needs, joys, cravings and crises, suggested: If you are using writing exercises for social training, it can be a chance to understand that communication styles are different, not better or worse, just different. It can be fun to learn a different way of communicating, like learning a new language. You may even connect to the sensations in your body by way of writing. But please don’t mask yourself on the page. “Yes and thank you”, agreed acclaimed writer of “The Big Autism Book”, Erik Jan Harmens, whose work served as inspiration for the exercises. “If possible, I would like to be myself. I’m not so interested in adapting.” Approaching writing as a way to explore difference without valuation could do a world of good, we concluded. Apart from this, concise, clearly-structured and open-ended exercises about anything — dancing, describing a person, space exploration, grandmothers, etc., were enthusiastically welcomed, and discussions continued over excellent home-cooked lentil soup and far into the night.
https://www.michahamel.com/
https://schrijflab.nl/
Micha Hamel and first participant ringing our doorbell for the first Fieldlab ;-)
Impression Fieldlab 1