Neurodivergent Artist Collective - Community Arts Council of Vancouver

The Neurodivergent Artist Collective is a new collaborative effort by neurodivergent artists in Vancouver to take space in a neurotypical world and works to dismantle invisible inequities in contemporary art spaces. Members of the collective self-identify as neurodivergent and have felt alienated from engaging in the arts due to barriers such as a lack of access. The collective aims to be a safe space for folks facing socio-economic barriers, from differing cultural backgrounds, and of all sexual orientations and gender identities.

Exhibtions:

Oct 2023 – 2023 Vancouver Outsider Arts Festival

November 2024 – Gallery George

The collective is hosted by Community Arts Council of Vancouver (CACV).
This project is funded by Disability Alliance BC.

Aliza Bosa

she/they

Aliza Bosa

she/they

Aliza is a queer non-binary Filipino Italian artist who loves to build community through art. She uses a mixed media art style highlighting mesmerizing colours and textures, and she encourages people to touch her art pieces. Aliza’s other interests include sorting and identifying microscopic seashell species, collecting cherry tree sap, finding bugs, looking at beautiful rocks, and observing the natural world. Aliza was a member of the Purple Thistle Collective before it shut down in 2016, where they sold art at the Vancouver Eastside Culture Crawl and facilitated art workshops for youth. Aliza started creating as a young child, attending Langley Fine Arts School for 12 years, and currently studies visual art part-time at Langara College. They dream of eventually creating or joining an accessible art space in East Van.

Aurore Dupont-Sagorin

she/her

Aurore Dupont-Sagorin

she/her

Aurore is a French multidisciplinary storyteller and advocate for neurodiversity who has lived all around the world. She studied literature and film and has been making documentaries and videos for the last 10 years, mostly about people and resilience. She also writes and draws, mainly naive art, and works on an autobiographical graphic novel about mirror-pain synesthesia.

Chantelle Chan

she/they

Chantelle Chan

she/they

Chantelle Chan enjoys the pursuit of many interests, some of which have been consistent companions. Creating art is one. The practice of cyanotype has caught Chantelle’s interest at several points, but previously denied. To be creating as a member of the Neurodivergent Artist Collective has been a validating experience, for someone who hesitates to call themselves an Artist. Currently, she is practicing how to grant themselves permission to explore yet another medium to satisfy a curiosity, an itch. Permission to explore is permission to relax into self, neurodivergent brain and all. By gently shifting the internal script on who an Artist is, as well as what it means to be AuADHD, Chantelle is working on layering more ease and embodiment into their experience as a human. Chantelle is the co-owner/operator of Suelo & Faa, a micro urban flower farm with a Community Supported Agriculture program, in the Hastings-Sunrise neighbourhood. Floral design and arrangement is a constant practice, as well as working with animal and plant fibres to create textiles. Chantelle has spun and knit wool for over a decade, and is slowly building a wealth of skills and knowledge in growing and processing different materials via the EartHand Gleaners community. They currently proudly work with Young Agrarians, an organization focused on the growth and development of young farmers across Western Canada.

Leanna Manning

she/her

Leanna Manning

she/her

Through the sensory experience of mark making, Leanna Marie Manning scribbles other worlds. Her work is in constant search for what moves imagination when the body feels attuned to the things around her. Leanna plays with materials that feel good to touch, to see, to smell. Her works dwells in the threshold between the hard sensorial surfaces and affective flows and terrains. Hers is a neurodivergent art: the perpetual search for the canvas that exceeds the frame as it creates its own room in our everyday spaces. From painting to scribbling, drawing to writing, Leanna’s art gravitates towards other possibilities. She works with watercolours and pencil crayons on heavy stock paper, and she loves photography. Her work reflects on the flows that (over)whelm her. Every trace, and every scribble, is fugitivity affirming divergence, both neural and physical. Her art practice helps locate herself in her body in a world that is often chaotic to be a part of. It’s a practice of observation and it’s a practice of integration. She grew up in the west end of Ottawa, Ontario, moving to Toronto to pursue a career in interior design and graduating from the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD) in 2010. Currently Leanna works in accessible communications while living a life full of colour, light, and texture. Much like her art, this professional work is about creating spaces open for divergence and difference. She works with an array of clients, from organizations and collectives to university professors and marketing teams.

Amy (Yun Ru) Bao

she/her

Amy (Yun Ru) Bao

she/her

Amy (Yun Ru) Bao is an emerging multidisciplinary artist who loves creating murals and sculptures. She strives to make playful, accessible art. You can check out more of her work on Instagram @amy.yunru.bao

Randall Bear Barnetson

he/him

Randall Bear Barnetson

he/him

Randall Bear Barnetson is a multidisciplinary artist of Indigenous heritage. Bear is from the village of Nadleh Whut’en, the Dakelh nation, and of the Duntem’yoo Bear clan. Bear’s artistic practice interprets matters of modernity such as mental health and wellbeing, identity, culture, and spirituality, through the framework of Northwest Coast Indigenous art forms. Bear’s art and traditional storytelling has aided in reconciliation and decolonization efforts with settler organizations in discussing Indigenous culture and heritage. Bear was born and raised in the urban Indigenous community of Commercial Drive in Vancouver BC. Bear spent years serving alongside his parents who founded a thriving mission on the 100 block of Hastings that provided essential services to over two million members of the Downtown Eastside Community. Bear’s practice is currently based on the Unceded Territories of the Musqueam Coast Salish peoples as a guest. On this territory is Vancouver’s YVR International Airport, from which Bear received the Emerging Indigenous Artist Scholarship award in 2022. Bear is enrolled in his Bachelor of Arts in Visual Arts at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Bear has completed the Foundation Program thus far.

Jae Lew

they/it

Jae Lew

they/it

Jae Lew is a transdisciplinary new media artist and filmmaker working with ceramics, 16mm film, electronics, illustration and sound. Jae was born and currently resides on the stolen territories of the xwməθkwəy̓ əm (Musqueam), Skwxwu7mesh (Squamish), and səl ̓ ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. They hold a Bachelors in Media Arts from Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

Mars Jarvis

they/he

Mars Jarvis

they/he

Mars Jarvis (They/He) is a multi-medium artist based in Vancouver, BC. They have been creating all forms of art since their early childhood using art as a way to make sense of his emotions and as a way to help process trauma. They are self-taught, and are soon starting formal art education. He explores themes surrounding chronic illness, complex emotions, identity, and their experience being trans and queer. They won multiple awards at the Speaking From Our Art exhibition in 2022. He aspires to be a full-time artist in the future, and hopes to find a way to help people through art.

Yes I Don't

they/them

Yes I Don't

they/them

This artist declined to provide an artist statement.

Tuyết Ánh Judith Nguyễn

they/them

Tuyết Ánh Judith Nguyễn

they/them

Tuyết Ánh Judith Nguyễn (they/them) is a nonbinary multidisciplinary artist of Vietnamese ancestry living with complex post-traumatic stress disorder on the Ancestral, Traditional, unceded Coast Salish territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh Nations. With an academic background in social sciences and art therapy, Nguyễn's artwork encompasses themes of community care, bodily rest, integrity, mindfulness, and all bodies liberation in the genres of neo-expressionism painting and life drawing. Nguyễn often creates out of gathering insights about themself, creativity, people, and the world. They have exhibited for the View Gallery, featured at Vancouver Queer Film Festival, written for Disability Alliance BC’s Transition Magazine, and tabled at Flourish Together: QTBIPoC Arts Market. Grounded in a social justice framework, Nguyễn is a community support worker whose passions are rooted in holistic wellness, visual arts, compassion, harm reduction, and social change at the frontlines. As they grow, Nguyễn finds that they make art to revere life itself. Nguyễn is a homebody, big on karaoke and slice-of-life manga.

Caitlin Callaghan

they/them

Caitlin Callaghan

they/them

Caitlin Callaghan (they/them) is a multimedia and multidisciplinary artist who's creations dive into vulnerability and celebrate the spectrum of human emotion. Caitlin’s art often expresses the joy and pain that can be found in living as a neurodivergent (Autistic/ADHD), non-binary, queer, and disabled person. They create in various mediums primarily through the disciplines of photography, painting, and writing. Caitlin is always experimenting and expanding the ways that they express themselves and can also be found creating jewelry, collages/zines, clay work, videography, and more. Beyond art, they use their privilege (where possible) to produce accessible events created for and by Neurodivergent people, often focusing on the intersections of being Neuroqueer. Caitlin is a settler of Celtic and Scandinavian heritage who was raised on Qʼʷa:n̓ƛʼən̓ (Kwantlen) territory. Caitlin now lives and creates on the lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. Stay connected: @LivingLifeWithoutLimits

Jasper Berehulke

he/him

Jasper Berehulke

he/him

Jasper Berehulke is an indigiqieer artist from the Syilx Okanagan Nation. Throughout his BFA undergraduate studies at UBC, spanning from the Okanagan campus to the art scene of Vancouver, Jasper found inspiration in themes of heritage, community, and queer identity. He has been open about his involvement with the 2SLGBTQ+ community for over a decade, including being out as a transgender man for five of those years. Now in his graduating year, he works mainly in oil paint but still loves exploring other mediums. He has experience working in the animation industry for two years in Kelowna. He has exhibited his work in six different cities across BC and plans on expanding that ever further.

Olusha Milley

she/her

Olusha Milley

she/her

Born and raised in east Vancouver by immigrant parents, Olusha uses a raw, semi-abstract language to express symbolic representations and metaphors about personal growth, voyaging, returning, patterns and cycles. Rendered with dynamic lines, nuanced textures, and bold compositions and colours, her drawings and paintings are emotive and ultimately intend to convey a spirit of optimism, resilience, and determination. Olusha holds a BFA and ML.Arch from The University of British Columbia. See Olusha's newest work on Instagram @olushasm.