In the words of my favourite ex-band:
human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, dadatatatatadadatatatadatatatata [...]

The publication I want to create is a personal picture book zine/ diary/ scrapbook that discusses themes of trying to navigate life with ADHD, stimming, addiction, self-destructive behaviours and the wish to adopt a dog.

The simultaneous narratives will be connected by red threads through-out. The concepts of safe spaces, more-than-human connections and neurodivergence. The fast-pace non-linear storytelling of jumping from one subject to the next with each page, will become coherent again through the use of a diary-like format, set in an arbitrary timeline.

Through using various different mediums, such ass digital and analogue drawings, photography, scans and clay, to create mixed-media images and comics, I hope for the publication to evoke feelings of uneasiness, then switch back to serenity, back to stress, back to feelings of content.

Like a diary you open at a haphazard page and close at another again, this publication won’t have a beginning nor an end-conclusion but rather function as an experimental art-piece (about really wanting a dog).

SOME NOTES:

Making kin, making kin, making kin. But with whom?

If I had one Euro for every time I asked my mother to get a dog as a child,
I’d have enough money to afford therapy now.

“Making kin” sounds like “making friends”. And I’m awefully bad at that.

I would ask her every day, for years.

I think I did make kin, in a way. With all the people that felt uncomfortable in the classroom. Continuously talking about neurodivergency seems like a necessary pursuit. Yet, why did it make me feel so uncomfortable?

And to make sure I was persuasive enough, I would study and learn and rehearse everything about dogs I could get my hands on!

Maybe it’s the classroom setting? Oh, the bitter taste in my mouth from spending years of education in which your neurodivergency get ignored, shunned or looked down upon. The awefully bright and loud classroom.

I had piles of big, complicated books about the history of dogs, dog breeding, training and nutrition.

Classroom 2.0.

If you have a specific goal in mind, it’s easier to work towards it.

I’ve learned a lot from this course, not all was bad.
In fact, most wasn’t bad at all. We made slime, I gagged (only) a few times.

And a lot of figurines and plushies, of course.

I’ve collected a lot of thoughts, mostly thoughts, less notes. I forgot about taking notes, most of the time.

A LOT of dog plushies. And each had a name.
I’m not good at remembering things, that I didn’t write down or read over and over. Now it comes to bite me in the ass!

That’s how my little neurodivergent brain made sense of it: How could she say “NO” if I’m a dog EXPERT!

I learned about non-linear writing. Can’t do it really. Everything needs some kind of structure.

There can’t be a dog expert, without a dog! Like there can’t be a cook without a kitchen, or a doctor without patients.

The Antropocene frame work puts the human both at the start, center and end of what it tries to define. Implying to be both perpetrator, casualty and it’s salvation. A bit like parents refusing to go to therapy.

I have gotten out of that of that hyper-fixation, since, sort of.

This practice was more-than-bullshit