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Steve Barker

Autism Show Spotlights Creativity

Submitted by Landon Bryce on Fri, 06/15/2012 - 18:39
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With more than 90 exhibitors and a speech from Autistic Self Advocacy Network president Ari Ne'eman, The Autism Show is showing London what autistic people can do:

"If society wants autistic people to play a part, they have to let us be who we are in all areas of life," said Steve Barker, a concert flautist who was diagnosed with autism late in life and also has Tourette's Syndrome. "Not just where it's convenient."

Mr Barker, whose orchestra is resident at the Sage concert hall in Gateshead, is speaking at the event on the link between autism and creativity. Yesterday he demonstrated how the obsession with structure and pattern that goes into creating works of art, in particular music, was mirrored in the workings of the autistic mind. "I feel fine when I'm on the stage. Society is willing to tolerate me on a stage. It's when I come off the stage that it's not so easy, he said. "If society is willing to take typical people with all their good and bad points, then why not the atypical people too?"

 

 

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