We are Aion Arribas and Antje Nestel. Together we have created shy*play: a pedagogical platform, collective, and art practice. shy*play focuses on doing neurodiversity not as a process of explanation, but as a relational practice in difference. We use art-as-process and (un)learning techniques with the intention of creating socialities with their own values, outside the workings of normality and identification.  

Doing neurodiversity for us begins with developing techniques for structured improvisation that are informed by neurodiverse tendencies in relation to neurotypicality. For example, how can we diverge from neurotypical conditions of spacing that foreground face-to-face interactions, human centrality and extraversion? Or, how can we create a technique that highlights the different languages that operate vibrantly beneath and between the words, yet still connected to them when we learn with or 'read' language? Languages that include those of movement, texture, shape, sound, vibration, and color.

The creation of techniques for us involves an experimental practice with various types of materials to condition participation otherwise. Namely, we use a large assortment of fabrics in different textures, colors, and opacities that facilitate non-neurotypical architecting. We also experiment with different performances of voicing sounds, such as murmurs, stutters, crackings and quietnesses. The processes of developing techniques pay tremendous attention to the interrelation of the senses, also known as synesthetic processes, and the more-than-human worlds. This highlights the agential thinking-doing capabilities of all processes that fall outside, but are related to, human consciousness. 

Our events are improvisational workshops where specific techniques are implemented and participants are invited to engage openly with them. A shift from neurotypical conditions is sometimes successfully achieved, yet we can’t predict how values will emerge from them. We view this practice as collective research into sociality-making. 

shy-play.nl/