The Great White Horse Hotel Ipswich Installation

November - January 2022 - 2023

The Great White Horse is a historic hotel based in the town centre of Ipswich, Suffolk – a fascinating building – a former glorious hotel, which my friend is in the process of renovating. After receiving a guided tour one night, I found out that Room 88 was where Charles Dickens wrote the Pickwick Papers – not his best work, but the piece that got him very quickly well known.

I asked if I could borrow the room to create an installation – to depict the Excluded – members of society who either feel they do not fit in, or are shunned by society for any number of reasons. I was particularly interested in this topic after attending a shamanic retreat in December with Imelda Almqvist, where we covered this in depth. I also have ADHD, which was diagnosed in my mid forties and very badly misdiagnosed before that (leading to feelings of isolation, rejection by society and not fitting in/living a normal life.

So, in January I linked up with the ADHD and Autism society in Ipswich, and decided to make a start on a series of films that may help to raise awareness of particularly neurodivergent conditions in women, undiagnosed until later in life due to often a women’s ability to mask how they feel (as a coping mechanism).

This is just the very beginning of a much bigger project. I intend to focus my Masters’ degree in Fine Art on neurodivergence as I still search for deeper understanding in order to work out the answers I have about it; how differently the brain is wired, what causes the condition, and why it is so hard to diagnose. I am reading widely on the topic, mostly on how to manage it, as medication is not enough on its own. Structure and discipline with routines (something that is not natural or generally welcomed by a neurodivergent) – me anyway – are critical. However, the most interesting part is the ways this superpower can be channelled into extreme creativity and productivity when it is managed sufficiently.