Flow Observatorium: Report of 2022 - 2023
Despite Covid still casting its shadow across everyday life as the year rolled on we continued developing and implementing innovative ways of working. We have continued to strengthen our relationships locally as well as internationally including supporting and working with PACF (Portsmouth Autism Community Forum) on arts and policy, PCOS (Portsmouth City of Sanctuary) with whom officially we are the lead for PCOS for Autistic People. We are continuing to offer training on Autism/Neurodiversity as part of a series of equality workshops to other organisations in the city.
We continue to partner with PACF supporting the work of ‘Room one’ autistic led space. We have also been supportive of contact with local Mental Health services to encourage change in understanding and provision of appropriate Autistic enabling services. (we were part of a successful Portsmouth bid alongside Portsmouth Creates and others with ‘YouTrust’ leading the ‘Thriving Communities’ to gain some funding to run creative sessions on prescription for Autistic people in Portsmouth)
This offer has developed into an ‘ongoing program’ of arts and peer support both face to face and online nationally called ‘KoCreate’. Through this project we firmly believe that as appropriate mental health support for autistic people is difficult to find we engender belonging using the innate creativity of autistic/ND people which supports our wellbeing. KoCreate has proved very valuable to the participants and we have increased from a pool of 5 people in 21-22 to over 20, generally having 6-7 come to the face to face group and 5-6 coming to the online zoom group. We have used our remaining Arts Council England funding to enable us to run the group for then last 12 months (October 23).
Our KoCreate Collective has been recognised as model of good practice by local NHS and Council care services has also attracted creative commissions. During the summer our Artistic Director was commissioned to create an installation for ‘We shine 22’ by Portsmouth Creates, which he suggested could be a great KoCreate project. We worked with both local and online members to create a sound, video and light installation called Watching Waters. All created short videos on the theme of stimming, some the music and helped build the ‘monolith’ for “Watching waters’ brings an intimate exploration of the autistic culture of stimming to light in a tryptic happening of sound, imagery and spoken word all stitched together with Fibonacci number”
Watching Waters was shown in the foyer of the University of Portsmouth over 3 nights in November 22 as part of ‘We shine’ Festival attracting approximately 800 visitors and receiving praise from established artists and representatives of Arts Council England. It’s supported greatly in the well-being and confidence of those participants who created the installation. We are currently looking at more commissioning. During early 2023 we received a gift of Lego from The Lego Group and used some of the commissioning money to buy more s/h and are starting a Lego club offer as part of Ko-create. This will be documented for research and as an engagement model.
We recognise the importance of creativity led by and for autistic people on Mental Health maintenance so have applied for suicide prevention funding for KoCreate (late 23) to deepen the wellbeing offer. We also continue to open the charity to additional trustees, with equality knowledge and the representation of wider cultural and social narratives and experiences. Seeing the joy, peer support and friendship KoCreate offers the participants we will continue this important work into 23-24 and beyond.
Jon, our artistic director , still being careful and masking at workshops and to safely travel (at minimum) has continued working ‘online’ potentially reaching a wider audience and learning digital skill sets. He continues to work on his personal practice, training organisations online such as the Lego Group. He has been made an expert consultant for ATAutism. In late 22 he suffered a bout of depression due to he feels a discriminatory event, despite this he’s continued to advise and advocate for others mental health drawing from his personal expertises of being an autistic and Neurodivergent person. He has also worked on various academic research projects including ‘Suicide in autistic people, trauma, The importance of creative belonging, Autistic inertia and Flow. Some of his contribution has influenced Government prevention policy.
Flow Observatorium Portsmouth Guildhall Guildhall Square Portsmouth PO1 2AB - Registered Charity Number: 1177328. https://flowobsad.wixsite.com/flow observatorium/resources
Citation for “ KoCreate Collective: Flow Observatorium, together with Portsmouth Autism Community Forum (PACF), Room One, set up KoCreate; running free creative sessions for Neurodivergent Creatives, both online nationally and face-to-face in Portsmouth facilitated by Autistic Artist Jon Adams. The collective meet every week and as well as self directed projects have collaborated with organisations such as Royal Collage of Arts, Portsmouth Creates and actively advocate for understanding of Neurodivergent Creatives holistically”
Images descriptions top to bottom:
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Flow logo 2. - Alt: the word flow spelt out in driftwood and shells
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The Design for flows KoCreate group used to advertise the sessions - Alt: Four coloured pencils resting on a green background with the writing ‘creativity sessions for autistic people by autistic creatives’
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Watching Waters’ alt: A still from the video showing branding of hair
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installation set up. Alt: Dual flat screens showing stimm videos at differing start points - angled at 90° for each performance set up in a wider space with lights monolith, 8ft tall, three sides lit in-front of windows. Sound came from speaker behind ‘Monolith’. People could sit to experience or approach lights.
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2 different views of the Installation running. Alt images showing it’s positioning so visitors could see it from outside. The lights (Different colours, times and directions) that were performed to correlate with each sound track via a Bluetooth app on an iPhone plus a galaxy projection swirling above on low ceiling.
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A black and white image of a castle drawn by Jon during a KoCreate session on using ink pens and an abstract image created by Jon used as the cover for the spring edition of Ought, the magazine of Autistic culture - Alt: 1: A castle with turrets and towers on rocks by the sea - 2: An abstract design in browns reds and pinks inspired by folded paper plus shapes on ends of lines/wires.
| EXPENDIT URE |
FLOW OBSERVATORIUM INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT 2022/2023 |
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DATE | PAYEE | ITEM | WE SHINE |
KOCRE ATE |
OTHE R |
TOTALS | |
| 11/05/2022 | Ben Parker | Administrator fee | £1300.0 0 |
£1300.00 | |||
| 11/05/2022 | Jon Adams | Artist fee | £1900.0 0 |
£1900.00 | |||
| 22/12/2022 | E M Weston | Online resources (Zoom Subscription) |
£143.88 | £143.88 | |||
| 22/12/2022 | Jon Adams | We ShineResources | £700.00 | £700.00 | |||
| 22/02/2023 | We Shine Participant |
Artist Fees | £400.00 | £400.00 | |||
| 22/02/2023 | We Shine Participant |
Artist Fees | £400.00 | £400.00 | |||
| 22/02/2023 | We Shine Participant |
Artist Fees | £500.00 | £500.00 | |||
| 22/02/2023 | Jon Adams | Artist Fees | £2100.0 0 |
£2100.00 | |||
| 27/02/2023 | E M Weston | Admin for 22/23 | £375.0 0 |
£375.00 | |||
| 27/02/2023 | We Shine Participant |
Artist Fees | £650.00 | £650.00 | |||
| 27/02/2023 | We Shine Participant |
Artist Fees | £550.00 | £550.00 | |||
| 16/03/2023 | We Shine Participant |
Artist Fees | £400.00 | £400.00 | |||
| 29/03/2023 | Jon Adams | Delivery Fees for KoCreate | £3115.0 0 |
£3115.00 | |||
| 31/03/2023 | HSBC | BankCharges | £70 | £70 | |||
| 70.00 | |||||||
| TOTAL EXPENDITURE: | £5700 .00 |
£6458. 88 |
£445. 00 |
£12,673 .88 |
|||
| INCOME | |||||||
| Carried Forward | £5,119.2 4 |
| You Trust | £4000.0 0 |
£4000.00 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PortsmouthCreates– We Shine | £5750 | £5750 | |||||
| Wessex Archaeology | £500.0 0 |
£500.00 | |||||
| Total income | £15,369 .24 |
||||||
| Less expenditure | £12,673 .88 |
||||||
| To be carried forward | £2,695. 36 |
||||||
Elizabeth Weston Chair 24.11.2023