EXHIBITION
APRIL 25 – TBA
ARTIST TALK
FRIDAY, APRIL 25/ 6 – 8 PM
Visible Spectrum: Portraits from the World of Autism
Visible Spectrum is a book project that pairs portraits of autistic people living in the North Carolina Triangle with narratives written by the subjects or their parents. It is my attempt to increase the visibility of autism and to encourage an alternate view of it, one which values the varied and unconventional perspectives of the neurodiverse. Photographically, I have tried to capture the odd combination of otherworldliness and directness that makes many autistic people so disarming. I have pictured them mostly in quiet contemplative moments to reflect their often rich inner lives.
I have been immersed in the world of autism since my son was diagnosed with Aspergers.
While autism can present herculean challenges for some, many people with the condition have remarkable strengths. Singular figures from history who were likely on the autism spectrum include Michelangelo, Isaac Newton, Mozart, Jane Austen, Darwin, Einstein, Emily Dickinson and Warhol. Temple Grandin was only half joking when she said that without autism, humans would still be “standing around in a cave, chatting and socializing and not getting anything done.”
One thing these groundbreakers shared (on top of intense passion and focus), was seeing the world in a new way; they were the epitome of “out of the box thinkers.” A potential downside of seeing things differently from most people is confusion and anxiety resulting from not understanding others’ motivations (autism being partially a social communication disability). A popular website by and for the autism community is called wrongplanet.net.
Most people with autism are not geniuses. But each looks at the world in a unique way, often refreshing in its originality, disregard for convention and lack of pretense. We need to better understand the autistic, not only to make the world a kinder place for them, but to broaden our own perspectives.
Visible Spectrum is a book project that pairs portraits of autistic people in North Carolina with narratives written primarily by the subjects or their parents (published in 2021 by Kehrer). It was inspired by the “neurodiversity” movement, which sees autism as a disability and a different way of being rather than as a disease or disorder that must be cured. Like the broader disability rights movement, neurodiversity focuses on removing access barriers in society so that disabled people can be included, rather than on “fixing” disabled people.
Photographically, I have tried to capture the odd combination of otherworldliness and directness that makes many autistic people so disarming. I have pictured them mostly in quiet contemplative moments to reflect their often rich inner lives.
ARTIST BIO
Mary Berridge’s photographs have been exhibited in many venues including the Museum of Modern Art in NY, the De Young Museum in San Francisco and the Fitzwilliam Museum in the United Kingdom. She is interested in how people find meaning in challenging circumstances.
Her work has received several awards– among them are: a Guggenheim Fellowship, a NY Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, the Lange-Taylor Prize, and an Aaron Siskind Fellowship. She has published three books: A Positive Life: Portraits of Women Living with HIV (Running Press, 1997), On the Eve, Moscow, 1998, (Blue Sky Books, 2014) and Visible Spectrum: Portraits from the World of Autism, (Kehrer Verlag, 2021). Her photographs have been published in numerous periodicals and anthologies, including The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, The Guardian, TIME, Der Spiegel, and CNN.
After earning her MFA from Yale and a BA from the University of Michigan, she went on to teach at Princeton University as well as several other colleges and universities. She lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where she is an active advocate in the autism community.