Neurodiversity and Creativity Conference 10-12 June 2026

This conference is part of the Anfinn Research Project, which explores neurodivergent creative artistic practices and how arts spaces can become more inclusive of these:

The Anfinn project uses practice-based and participatory action research methods to investigate

• why neurodivergent creative outputs, practices and practitioners are often excluded from creativity discourses and spaces;
• how to change this (for example by experimenting with spaces, modes of participation, demonstration and creative activism);
• why to change this (for example considering the harms done to the excluded, the incompleteness of any exclusionary creative movement, the unique innovations and outputs neurodivergent creatives are developing).

The hypothesis behind the Anfinn project is that the potential for exploration and integration of neurodivergent creativity is disproportionately unrealised due to ableist systems and structures.

The project conference will be a cross-genre (academic, creative, activist, experimental and more) sharing of ideas by neurodivergent creative practitioners and creativity researchers.

  The anthropologist Anna Tsing has written about how it is impossible for capitalism to appropriate the Matsutaki mushroom harvest, because its rhizomatic underground ecology can’t be replicated using profit-making modes. Only those who read the forest (communities often invisible to capitalism and silenced within its discourses) know how to find them.

Nonlinear mycoecology networks do not operate hierarchically, but function to distribute resources on the basis of need: the interconnected relational processes of finding which trace these networks cannot be articulated using the language of patriarchy.

The fundamental importance of mycoecological networks to soil fertility has only recently been discovered by Western science. These networks continue to be destroyed by modern agricultural practices like ploughing, and the use of pesticides and artificial fertilisers, resulting in the ongoing stripping of nutrients from soil and the food grown in it.

In the 1970s, poststructuralist philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari appropriated the term ‘rhizomatic’ (referring at that time simply to the root structures beneath trees) as a way to problematise linear concepts of meaning and interrelation. This concept is now widely applied to the study of creativity and creative praxes, as well as within the disciplines which deconstruct linear concepts of social processes and networks such as feminist studies and disability studies.

Cultural theorist and political philosopher Erin Manning’s work on non-neurotypical research-creation outlines the importance of looking “underneath” the linear knowledge-creation structures of the commodified university to find research questions and idea-networks that cannot yet be articulated. “Rather than seeing the parts abstracted from the whole,” she says, “autistic perception is alive with tendings that create ecologies before they coalesce into form.” 

We welcome proposals for 15-20 minute contributions from neurodivergent people working mainly in creativity or creativity research who encounter significant barriers to participation in creative communities and are passionate about investigating these.

It is not necessary to:

• have academic qualifications;
• have a ‘successful’ creative career as defined by capitalist patriarchal society;
• have a formal diagnosis of neurodivergence;
• be able to attend in person;
• be able to navigate neurotypical or abled-centric spaces.

Proposals may be for

• academic presentations;
• creative presentations (performances, workshops etc);
• experiential presentations (aut-ethnography, storytelling etc);
• practice presentations (discussions of creative practices, works or works in progress, etc);
• other kinds of presentations depending on what works for the presenter;
• in light of recent developments in the US, special consideration will be given to presentations investigating (discussing, workshopping or performing) creative activism and real-world actions.

We are limited by the resources available to us, but would love to talk through what might be possible beyond traditional presentation formats.

Proposals should be sent in the body of an email to kathy@hi.is, and should include:

• a short, descriptive presentation title;
• 250-300 words, in English, comprising a concise outline of presentation content including relevance to this conference;
• presentation format (oral presentation, performance etc as above);
• any accessibility and inclusivity considerations (concerning presenter(s), attendees and content);
• any technical and performance requirements as necessary.

The deadline for proposals is November 30 2025.

Results will be communicated in January 2026.

Information on booking, accommodation, accessibility, and what remote participation will look like will be available early in 2026.