Re-imagining being in community with Sensory Beings
with Max Alexander
Max Alexander explores the role of play and creativity in collaborating with and supporting individuals described as having Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities (PMLD) or as Sensory Beings, and those who support them.
During a three month period of working with Cherry Road, a day service in Midlothian which provides programmes of activity, community, support and care to adults described as having PMLD, Max began to explore the potentials of play with staff and service users to provide meaningful and connective experiences within the community of the centre.
In conversations around this project and what a written resource might look like Max was given the provocation to think about the longer term future of those he was working with and what role play and creativity could have. So, rather than producing a report talking about what has been done, Max has instead produced a ‘Speculative report’ written from the perspective of an imagined social care facility who are questioning their practices and exploring new ways to nurture a meaningfully connected community of individuals with profoundly different ways of being.
In offering this report, Max asks how we, as artists, carers, workers and fellow humans, can better engage in supporting and collaborating with those described as having PMLD or as Sensory Beings.
This text may be of particular interest to artists who have a collaborative practice, wish to develop one or anyone who shares their lives with Sensory Beings or individuals described as having PMLD.
Max Alexander (he/him) is an artist, playworker and creative facilitator who specialises in working with neurodivergent and/or disabled children and young people. Working as ‘Play Radical’ Max creates and co-creates spaces for play, exploration and connection with a focus on neurodivergent joy and ways of relating.
Max is passionate about access to artistic, playful and creative experiences for neurodivergent and disabled individuals and the idea of beautiful creative accessibility is at the centre of his practice. He has worked with numerous organisations in the arts, theatre and education to make their practices and services more accessible to neurodivergent and disabled audiences and uses writing to further explore and share ideas in this area.
As an autistic artist Max’s practice is a space to communicate in his primary language, which is inherently a sensory one. He creates playful objects and environments which offer different ways of interacting with people and the sensory world. He is drawn to repetition, pattern, movement and loves to dive deep into things that might seem mundane or insignificant to discover new detail, beauty and very often absurdity and humour. Max is currently very into light switches, sticks and the colour orange.
See PlayRadical.com for more.