Help Vs. Access - An ND led model for leadership and opportunities
This article will introduce you (and other arts organisations that see themselves as “championing” or “helping” neurodivergent (or in their derogatory words, “neurodiverse”) artists and musicians vs what access actually means and a model I developed that ensures that Neurodivergent artists and musicians are at the fore of all decision making.
What does helping mean?
Helping requires a hierarchy.
“Help” in this sense is someone who has identified that they see a person as lower down on the scale than them who might be seen as rubbish, outsiders, the forgotten, the invisible, marginalised, or lesser than… othered…. who requires some kind of help in order to be more like them - coping, consistent, excelling, succeeding.
Often, they think that by making them visible instead of invisible solves the problem.
It doesn’t.
Why not?
Because that stance automatically sees the helped person as “lesser than” and incites inspiration porn.
Also, the “helper” has decided the “lesser than” person requires help.
Instead, “access” asks the person who is an outsider or is perceived as rubbish, the forgotten, the invisible etc how they would like to access a space, an environment, an opportunity. It’s more active and less passive.
For the purpose of this article I am going to name the “helped” person as Person B.
Access in this sense, asserts that Person B has skills and talent but requires tools to reduce their barriers so they can achieve.
The problem with organisations that state they champion disabled/neurodivergent artists and support them to show their art etc. is that that is really not enough.
Neurodivergent people do want their art to be seen yes, but their barriers involve much more than that.
They require access support to be able to network, to sell their work, to sustain their practice, to support them to lead on projects and discover their self worth. They need prompts and reminders.
They don’t need to be patronised and told “how to do this” - they know how to do it, they just don’t know how to present their ideas in a way that neurotypical/mainstream people can understand it.
They also burn out.
So this model is really quite simple. It is putting neurodivergent people or artists into leadership roles in the staff team.
It is about trusting neurodivergents to lead and to run projects and it is about giving them access support - so that when neurodivergent people have their own team of people to reduce their access barriers this means that they can now function, create, lead to the best of their ability or however they want to work as an artist.
Some neurodivergents might need a big team of people, others might just need an assistant. Some might need someone to help with writing all of their emails for them, and checking their emails. Others might require an Access Worker/assistant in all meetings to take notes, keep up with their diary and ensure that all team members are aware of decisions.
Once a neurodivergent artist identifies what access they need in the environment they’re in, that should be it. The organisation now has a duty to support them to sustain their practice, to continue to make work and show work, and support with forming partnerships. So the flow can continue.
Until this change happens in the arts, then organisations will continue with damaging narratives. And neurodivergent people will remain gagged.
Until the systems and structures change where neurodivergent people are seen as skilled individuals that require payment and a salary then the arts will continue to run these types of organisations that “look down” on the people they claim to be helping, instead of representing them properly and pushing for sales of their work, or ensuring they have support with funded opportunities.
Instead of taking a passive backseat and only seeking donations from wealthy organisations and rich donors, or arts funding etc. and then ticking a box that the neurodivergent artist was able to show their art.
Showing is not enough.
What must happen in order for neurodivergent artists to be successful in the arts is a type of scaffolding.
Use the funding to employ excellent PR and marketing individuals to ensure enough of the right people in the industry are invited (ie. collectors, and gallery curators or music producers and record labels etc) to these events to discover these artists.
Those are the kind of opportunities these artists are looking for - and if you can’t do that as an organisation then you have no business “helping” because it only further excludes neurodivergent artists. It raises their expectations. Showing art is not enough. Sustaining practice must be the goal.
How does putting neurodivergent artists on “show” exclude them? How does that work? Well, it wastes these artists time. They need support to sustain their practice and be paid… they have bills to pay, just like the rest of you.
What does access mean?
So how does access differ from help?
Access supports artists to sustain their practice and participate in an opportunity.
Access ensures the person remains autonomous, empowered and supported. They do not feel othered or lesser than.
You should be turning to that artist for insight, for advice or to make more work with them.
If you’re not doing that, then you’re not seeing them as equals. You’re seeing them as someone you’re helping as opposed to working with.
It needs to be a collaborative partnership.
You should be excited about working with them and want to ensure you can make even more work with them because the work they make is original, exciting and different.