Biodivergent Sites and Sounds
Elinor Rowlands is an Autistic/ADHD multi-disciplinary artist and is a Fine Art practice-based PhD candidate within the Artistic Research Centre (ARC) at NTU on a bursary scholarship. Her work is founded on the contemporary interplay between sound art, experimental forms of composition, language derived from the neurodivergent lived experience and live art, underpinned by political interest and the act of “noticing”. Her academic research explores how autistic stimming is an artistic methodology.
Biodivergent Sites and Sounds shines light on the importance of preserving our waterways and landscapes via autistic female led activities. Elinor's paintings are responses to the local stories and sounds found around London's waterways. With creative technologist, Charles Matthews, they have digitalised part of London’s waterways into an online interactive site mapping soundscapes of Harlesden's Canalside. These digital trails will illustrate autoethnographic links with place, community, biodiversity and the natural world, culminating in Elinor's exhibition at Creative Health Camden featuring paintings that illustrate the scenographical sensory soundscapes that she has made in collaboration with other autistic musicians and pupils from Harlesden primary school to examine ‘autistic stimming’ as an act of power, self-expression and creativity.
Alongside the exhibition Elinor will facilitate a workshop and an artist talk event on the Neurodivergent (ND) voice that is often rendered invisible in the arts, and its role in ecological activism. In partnership with the Canal and River Trust, and in collaboration with Neurodivergent creative technologist and musician Charles Matthews, Elinor's digitalised Canalscape will engage wider and diverse audiences in a more interactive way. Grounded in the bass-driven club scene, Matthews' approach to music is raw and tactile: integrating lights, sensors, and vibration to create multi-sensory experiences, equally focused on experimentation and accessibility. Whilst Elinor uses dreamy world-building and ritual in her video/audio, texts and paintings to disseminate timely truths about invisible challenges from an unflinchingly feminine gaze.
Elinor invites Creative Camden Health’s service users to journey and engage with their art practice in more sensory engaging ways influenced by Elinor's site specific and experimental soundscapes of London’s waterways.
Exhibition Opening Times:
Monday - Friday: 8:30 - 18:30
Saturday: Closed
Sunday: Closed
Check out the 360° Virtual Tour of the exhibition:
Click on the icons to navigate yourself around
