My Kind Of Day and The Autism Intermission with @followthewabbit #ThisIsAutism
By Jeannette | April 27, 2014
Today has been “my kind of day” as the title suggests, a day when both T and D have been happy to do their own activities (separately, not together). In D’s case, it’s been drawing and reading, in T’s (once homework was out of the way), it was football, football and more football. Facts, stats, everything.
A day when there were no external interruptions, the one-off heavy rain stopped any thought of outdoors activities so an “us” day, a chance to recharge before another week starts (which includes another injection for D).
An intermission, if you like.
This Is Autism
Tonight’s guest post comes from @followthewabbit with the background to their weekly Autism Intermission initiative.
“Follow the Wabbit is a story blog (http://www.followthewabbit.com) that works a bit like TV soap and a bit like a film storyboard. It’s the story of a rabbit who is a secret agent, who works out of Turin, Italy. His adventures are published and publicised during the week, but on a Saturday there’s a break for an Autism Intermission. Just as the Variety Club does in cinemas, the project promotes its cause via Twitter. To raise awareness of autism issues, our autism internet links tie in with the current adventure. This can be travel, colour, foods, education, health and we even managed to tie in with autism and pirates! So why autism?
Back in 2010, when the blog was in its infancy, the Wabbit hero was the point of view for a photo scene. We saw scenes through his eyes and no-one ever saw the Wabbit. But he had a strong enough Twitter presence as a character. An artist with an autistic son living in the South of England, Clari Csuck, (http://cargocollective.com/rudywilf) became attached to the project and to the Wabbit’s Twitter personality. She contributed three collaged characters: the Wabbit himself, Lovely Lapinette, his girlfriend and Skratch the Cat Burglar. Suddenly the characters took their place in the scenes and came to life. Now they’ve had many adventures, introduced new characters and built a strong following. Clari’s son Oscar is a delightful teenager, coping with many physical difficulties. He became our Postmaster General because he loves sending out parcels from the post office. I follow the adventures of Oscar via Clari on Twitter and Instagram – and he and Clari are always in our thoughts.
Autism is called many things – disorder, condition, impairment and so on. But in the end, those in the autism range have a very different yet personally authentic way of engaging with the world. It started to become clear that the characters in the Wabbit stories shared that quality. They’re out of phase with the “real world” they inhabit. But they inhabit it with a sense of fun, play and often joy -because their world is valid too. The story characters have a parallel power structure which they control and so the world has to be shared. The Autism Intermission is an attempt to carve out a space for people who live with autism – to speak the truth about difference and to forge some kind of acceptance and collaboration. But the role of the Intermission continues to be about autism awareness. Funds are always important but there are organisations set up to raise money. We do awareness – awareness is our thing.
Check out the stories at http://www.followthewabbit.com and Clari’s art at http://cargocollective.com/rudywilf.
The Wabbit is on Twitter as @followthewabbitand Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Cdr.Wabbit
LovelyLapinette is on Twitter as @LovelyLapinette and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/lovely.lapinette
… and on Saturdays follow the hash tag #autism and *Intermission*
Coinneach Shanks aka (The Wabbit) Photos, collage, storyboard and development
Camilla Galli da Bino (aka LovelyLapinette) Artwork and modelling”
The image below is from the story The Wabbit and Pirate Caffe
This is definitely something that D and I will enjoy following, bunnies or wabbits feature heavily in D’s life!
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