ad signage and looked at artwork; a continual reminder of autistic presence. A room full of conference materials (conferences organized by and that included autistic people, such as Autism Network International’s AUTREAT) was made available so that visitors could conduct their own research. A glossy magazine full of writings and artwork by autistic people as well as interviews of two major artists in the exhibition, Larry Bissonnette and Jonathan Lerman, was distributed.
To accompany the exhibition, the lecture series was held at the Al Green Theatre in downtown Toronto. We produced a glossy brochure with the artwork and the presentations of our autistic and non-autistic presenters along with the purpose of the event. We intentionally located the event in the middle of the medicalization of autism and the “tragedy” model of disability and positioned autistic lives as a “joy.” This was done by writing title ideas down and distributing among the autistic advisory committee for comment and approval. The final decision for the event/exhibition title was reached by consensus of fifteen autistic people. The predominant othering of the autistic person was countered in the “redefining autism” part of the title in order to reaffirm agency and made the event activist in nature. It meant to stare back as a result of being stared at. Just recently, The Autism Acceptance Project which staged the events, has been recognized by The Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) as “one of the most important events in the history of autism acceptance.” This is a step to autistic people claiming their own histiory.
The Importance of Record Keeping:
With respect to record-keeping, we keep originals and make, then bind copies of newspaper ads and articles that gleaned a great deal of media and public attention at the time. All the lectures were taped and we will get permissions to get them posted online in an upcoming new iteration of the TAAP website. As for the exhibition, the content was photographed, so we have a few records in this format, although there are not enough to reflect the depth and scope of the exhibition itself. It is here I would recommend better photo and video recording and more thought into saving, archiving and disseminating the results and content of events. I had posted the limited exhibition photos online at The Autism Acceptance Project website (www.taaproject.com) , along with the submitted artwork and writings by autistic people. Recently, as Reaume predicted in his essay, we lost that information when the website was hacked earlier this year. Not all of our content is recoverable.
Also important is the abundance of resources and contributions at Neurodiversity.com, the work of ASAN (The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network) as well as other major agencies and projects run by autistic people prior to and after TAAP. Specifically, nerodiversity.com remains one of the websites containing and assembling significant autism history that is at risk of being jeopardized if not kept in hard-copy. Specific and notable to Canadian autism history is Michelle Dawson, a Canadian autistic researcher. Her work, under the umbrella-title, The Misbehaviour of Behaviourists, is a significant piece of the history of how autistic people are mistreated in Canada (The Auton Case, The Human Rights Tribunal, and her exclusion at Autism Society of Canada). She has recorded her work at the website No Autistics Allowed (www.sentex.net/~nexus23/naa_03.html). These are only three examples of many more autistic-run online organizations and individuals — all which must be preserved, recorded and interpreted. This is something that more researchers may wish to consider.
Can An Autism History Really Exist?
“…we have to value all aspects of our past and to instil this value in others who keep these records so that future disability histories can be preserved, written and debated for generations to come,” says Reaume. “In doing so, the historical memory of our collective past can, one would hope, make for a better future where disabled people are not marginaliz