Self-portrait as both ape and topless woman: artwork statement

Arts House Listening Program

(Self-portrait as both ape and topless woman) wild and tame, strong and vulnerable, stupid and smart, masc and femme, masking and unable to mask: I can’t make a world without discrimination, I can’t end all ableism, I CAN draw a picture that holds us in the face of everything. --- Sometimes it’s so raw when you can’t regulate - if you’re under pressure, or out in society. I judge myself so much, forgetting not to feel all the things my early carers said to me. Please, don’t judge me for things out of my control. I want our society to change, and stop shaming and pathologising children that are born like me. I want stimming to be normalised, so our bodies can be free. I was diagnosed with ‘Polarised Intelligences’. In my childhood, this diagnosis was called idiot savant. They didn’t explain what the word savant meant (it means smart - I found that out at 32). My teachers’ aide also used the word ‘retarded’, which I preferred to ‘learning difficulties’ as it seemed more open-ended, and I didn’t have any problems learning art and things I was interested in. I didn’t see a need to talk or behave like other children. Now I like the term alternative processing abilities. I was privileged to go to the third most expensive private school in Melbourne. This meant that I was segregated with a Special Ed teacher, away from the other children, my entire education. This practice is now illegal. Instead of learning the curriculum, I learned a lot of weird stuff about me. I was tested a lot - around four times a year from grade five to grade 12, and once in my adult life. Even though I did the same test over and over, I could never learn to do things my brain hasn’t developed to do. I come out consistently around the 64th percentile on a two-week long neurological test. You could think that’s pretty average, I’m actually in 0.5% of the population - as half my areas of intelligence are below the 4th percentile, and the other half are in the 98th percentile or immeasurably good. Things that might be automatic or obvious for most people can be incredibly complex or impossible for me. On the other hand, I solved a block puzzle that hadn’t been solved for forty years at Melbourne Clinic, in under 40 seconds, to the amazement of the neuroscientists testing me! I think of the parts of my brain that haven’t developed like a beautiful instinctive apelike-feeling body. There can be something unconstrained, unfiltered and raw about the immediacy I experience. This part of me is so vulnerable and wounded, it’s also the most beautiful part of me. I think of the parts of my brain that are immeasurably intelligent as the parts that can protect me. This part of me appears and disappears with my capacity. Like my speech. It allows me to see things many people in my community can’t see. It allows me to comprehend things 99% of the population will never conceive. There’s a real strength in my vulnerability. There’s a real skill in my specialisation. There’s something fantastic about me that statistics could never quantify! Concept & Artwork: Mishka