Workshop: Deviant Divergences with Dawn-joy Leong and Grace McQuilten (9 Dec, 1-3pm, VCA UniMelb)

[Chloe Ho]

Sharing a second public event by Care and Repair and Art+Australia happening next week with visiting Singaporean artist Dawn below. 

When: Tuesday, 9 December, 2025
Time: 1-3pm
Where: Level 7, Room 721, The Ian Potter Southbank Centre (Melbourne Conservatorium of Music), 33-43 Sturt St, Southbank VIC 3006. 
RSVP: Chloe Ho, chlo...@unimelb.edu.au

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP
How do we improve artistic practice and design for neurodivergent artists, curators and visitors? What barriers and opportunities are there for neurodivergent practitioners and audiences in the field of art? This workshop curated by Professor Grace McQuilten draws
from visiting Autist Dr. Dawn-joy Leong’s practice in advocacy and activism for an art for and among the differently abled. It welcomes identifying and allied practitioners seeking to improve how their work could be understood by a diverse audience.

WHAT TO BRING
Please bring scrap/recycled fabric around 30x30cm or larger of any shape that feels comfortable to you. It would be used in our making activity. You may want to consider what ‘Clement Space’ and ‘Calm Room’ means to you, and if you have ever experienced one.

ACCESS
Please let us know of any access requirements when you RSVP for the event.

ABOUT DR. DAWN-JOY LEONG
Dr. Dawn-joy Leong is an Autistic, transdisciplinary, artist-researcher whose work has been presented in the UK, Austria, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, China, Australia, and Singapore. Her research and practice features immersive mind-body experiences, sensory idiosyncrasies, empathic resonance, and alternative sentience. For over a decade, Dawn-joy traversed terrains of sparkling wonderment with her creative muse, autism assistance dog, and the love of her life, Lucy Like-a-Charm, a rescued former racing Greyhound from Australia. Dawn-joy attributes her oeuvre to Lucy, who departed this mortal dimension in March 2023. Her new mission, in honour of Lucy’s legacy, is to complete their magnum opus, Lucy Like-a-Charm, a multimedia, multi-access memoir-fantasy about an Autistic woman and a Greyhound dog on a magical journey towards Becoming, and to travel the world sharing her story.

Learn more about Dr Leong: www.dawnjoyleong.com and find out more about the memoir project: www.scheherazadessea.com

Dr. Leong is on residency in Narrm/Melbourne with Norma Redpath Studio, The University of Melbourne, and McCraith House, RMIT University, through the month of December working on Lucy-Like-a-Charm — a multimedia, multi-access memoir-fantasy supported by the John and Lorna Wing Foundation (UK) that recognizes ART:DIS and Giorgio Biancorosso as creative collaborators. Her visit is further supported by Care and Repair: Rethinking Contemporary Curation for Conditions of Crisis (DP240102206), a joint research project between Monash University and RMIT University funded by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council.

ABOUT CARE AND REPAIR
Care and Repair: Rethinking Contemporary Curation for Conditions of Crisis (DP240102206) is a joint research project between Monash University and RMIT University funded by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council.

Website: https://curatingcarerepair.com/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/curatingcarerepair  
 

Image: Dawn-Joy Leong, Clement Space (2016-now). Installation view from Night to Light Festival: Invisible Cities, National Gallery Singapore, 10-19 January 2020. Photo courtesy of the artist.