Tzipporah Johnston
I am an embroiderer and mixed media artist based in Edinburgh. My work explores aspects of my identity as an autistic woman and my fascination with folklore and the natural world.
A central theme in my work is monotropism – the way autistic people tend to focus on restricted “attention tunnels”. This can have the negative effect of making executive functioning and particularly task-switching difficult. But I also experience monotropism as a source of pleasure and ‘flow’ when I am able to immerse myself in one of my special interests. It also helps me to take control of my anxieties, by immersing myself in the experience of creating amulets against them. By creating work that celebrates aspects of my autism at the same time as reflecting on the difficulties it creates, I express how autism is an ambivalent but integral part of who I am.