We got to
the launch of Saima Kaur’s Autism: This
is me at Kala Sangam (the intercultural arts hub in St Peter’s house next
door to Bradford Cathedral) last night: beautiful, imaginative, important and
moving.
She has used
the phulkari shawl embroidery tradition from the Punjab – pieces of which have
been handed down to her from her mother and grandmother – a tradition she knows
she will not be able to pass down to her profoundly autistic daughter.
Her shawls represent
interaction with stages of her daughter’s life.
Her hopes in the gift of a child about to be drawn down to her. Herself in a spin amidst the things people
said to her when her baby’s development seemed at first to be delayed. The sounds her growing daughter made. The way her daughter is overwhelmed by
senses. Experiences of anger. Fears for the grown daughter she will one day
leave behind.
And she
spoke of the what a difference it had made to her to express all this, and how she
had been able to draw some other mothers with children at the same Special
School into expressing other aspects of their own, a few of which were also on
display.
It continues
during the Centre’s normal opening times until 23rd May.
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