Calling on neurodivergent creatives! International artist and autistic advocate Dawn-joy Leong is visiting Melbourne. Together, we invite you (RMIT students and staff with lived experience of neurodivergence) to help co-create a sensory, calm room in RMIT Swanston Library as a pop-up space over Summer. This will hopefully lead to the design of a more permanent calm/quiet space in our Library next year.
We invite you to help us build a shared Clement Space that emphasises the tactile, textured, calming and relaxing: tailor-made for RMIT.
The first workshop is on:
Tuesday 2 December, 9:30am–1pm (with lunch break)
Room 10.06.103
360 Swanston St
This will include discussions with Dawn on space, space-making, and materials and objects of comfort. We will take a hands-on approach to dreaming and creating small sensory aids out of fabric, ribbons, stuffing and yarn; and consider how soft furnishings like rugs, pillows, blankets and soundscapes support an environment of reprieve. This small conception will inform how we co-furnish the RMIT Library.
Over the next week, students and staff can continue working and making in the space. We will regather with Dawn for a second workshop to review, reflect and plan next steps on:
Monday 8 December, 1–2:30pm
Room 10.06.103
60 Swanston St
Our co-created Clement Space will be installed throughout summer, with full acknowledgments to everyone involved.
Please bring along your favourite textures and sensory objects for illustration or contribution, sewing kits and curiosity.
Commitment: Participants should be prepared to attend both workshops.
Enquiries: please contact: Chloe: chloe.ho2@rmit.edu.au
Photo: Dawn-Joy Leong, Sonata in Z (2015), Installation at UNSW. Image courtesy of the artist.
RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.
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