UnMasked: Neurodiversity and Performance

Many neurodivergent people create and perform. It could be our over-active minds, a need to carve out our own niche in the world, or a need to express ourselves in a world that doesn’t get us. Or maybe we seek creative outlets in the same way neurotypical people do. Through acting, performance, writing and music, neurodivergent people are making themselves known. Join us with multidisciplinary artists The Mollusc Dimension and Xan Dye, who will discuss creative practice with an ND host. This event is for the ND people who are expressing themselves, wish to start expressing themselves and want to understand how to and where the parameters are (and aren’t). It is also for anyone, ND or not, seeking to understand people, performance and creativity and how is can liberate and console those of us who are different. The Mollusc Dimension is a British-Chinese, trans, queer, neurodivergent multidisciplinary artist. His colourful graphic memoir The Weird & Wonderful Surviveries of Squid Horse was shortlisted by The Selfies Book Awards for non-fiction. Xan Dye works with movement and performance as a form of artistic research. Turning to performance as a space to unmask and stim, they work through sensory pleasure, rhythm, repetition, and duration. Their recent projects include STIMMING (The Place, 2023), PRACTICING IN PARALLEL (V&A, 2025), and I AM ROOTED BUT I FLOW, presented at HAU Hebbel am Ufer as part of Tanz in August (2025).