Design for Feeling Understood
(2025)
author(s): Amber Gastel
published in: Royal Academy of Art, The Hague
This thesis explores how late-diagnosed autistic individuals and their close circle can redesign their relationship after their diagnosis through communication that aligns with autistic ways of being. Grounded in the neurodiversity paradigm, the social model of disability, and the double empathy problem, the research combines interviews, co-creation sessions, and visual storytelling to uncover emotional and relational dynamics during post-diagnosis identity shifts. Through a neurodivergent lens—rooted in sensory awareness, pattern recognition, and visual thinking—this work challenges deficit-based narratives and proposes a compassionate, co-created communication framework. The goal is not assimilation but mutual understanding: enabling autistic individuals to embrace their authentic selves while guiding loved ones to meet them with compassion and openness. Ultimately, the project reimagines design as a tool for creating connection, not correction—honouring difference, restoring balance, and building inclusive systems where all ways of being are valid, visible, and valued.
SELF as OTHER, or: Speaking aut*
(last edited: 2025)
author(s): Brab, Annan
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
We, Anna N. and Barb/Brab, started an exchange of thoughts about the meaning of "aut" – as in aut/istic and aut/oimmune.
We are interested in what it means to live as auts, to write about it in regard to everydaily life, in regard to the medical discourses about autism and autoimmunity, and in regard to the view of the "others", the not-auts.
In the context of language-based artistic research we seek to develop practices that allow for investigating the meaning of aut on different levels of our existence.
* (Speaking out and at the same time speaking as auts, but also speaking in a language called "aut")
