Neurodivergent Futures

Neurodivergent Futures

Neurodivergent Futures is a large-scale digital art installation created in collaboration with autistic and neurodivergent young people from across the Mansfield district. Developed through hands-on creative workshops and shaped into an immersive gallery experience, the exhibition celebrates neurodiverse ways of thinking, imagining, and experiencing the world.

The project was developed as part of Mansfield Museum and Mansfield Palace Theatre’s Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) programme, working in partnership with Nottingham Trent University, creative media agency MBD (Metro Boulo Dodo), Spectrum WASP, and Mansfield District Council’s Cultural Services team.

A Celebration of Neurodivergent Creativity

Neurodiverse Futures explores the creativity, imagination, and unique perspectives of autistic and neurodivergent young people. Over two days of hands-on workshops, participants worked with drawing, movement, sound, spoken description, and model-building to imagine hopeful futures and new worlds.

Importantly, the young people were actively involved in using the new AI technology alongside lecturers from Nottingham Trent University, helping to shape the AI-generated content in real time. This collaborative process allowed participants to see their ideas and expressions transformed directly into the immersive artwork.

These expressions have been transformed into a constantly evolving digital artwork — a looping stream of still and moving images that reflects thought, emotion, and sensory experience. MBD (Metro Boulo Dodo) have worked with these generated images and clips to pull all of the young people’s creative contributions together into a cohesive “loop of consciousness.”

This is not an exhibition about AI; it is an exhibition about people — a collaborative artwork that celebrates being and thinking differently, exploring how digital technology and art can highlight and celebrate neurodiversity in Mansfield. It demonstrates how technology can listen to and amplify the voices, ideas, and creativity of neurodivergent young people.

Creating the work

Over two days of workshops, participants explored their ideas of the future using drawing, movement, sound, spoken description, and model-making. Working alongside lecturers from Nottingham Trent University, the young people used emerging AI tools as part of a collaborative creative process, actively shaping how their ideas were translated into digital imagery.

Rather than generating finished outcomes automatically, the technology responded to the participants’ inputs, allowing their thoughts, emotions, and sensory experiences to be transformed into still and moving images in real time.

The installation

The resulting artwork takes the form of a constantly evolving digital projection — a looping stream of imagery described by the artists as a “loop of consciousness.” The installation fills the Baily Gallery, surrounding visitors with layered visuals, colour, movement, and rhythm that reflect the diverse inner worlds of the young people who created it.

MBD (Metro Boulo Dodo) have brought together all of the creative material into a cohesive, immersive environment that invites audiences to slow down, observe, and experience neurodivergent creativity on its own terms.

People first, technology second

Neurodivergent Futures is not an exhibition about artificial intelligence. It is an exhibition about people. The project explores how digital tools can be used to listen to, support, and amplify voices that are often underrepresented in digital art spaces, creating new opportunities for neurodivergent young people to express themselves creatively.

At its heart, the exhibition celebrates collaboration, imagination, and the value of thinking differently — offering a hopeful, inclusive vision of what creative futures can be.

Project Credits

The project proudly acknowledges the individuals who contributed to the development and delivery of Neurodiverse Futures:

Spectrum WASP

• Jeni Dubock
• Sue Edwards
• Jess Mason

Nottingham School of Art and Design, Nottingham Trent University

• Kristian Jones
• Dr Jennifer Bell

Mansfield District Council Cultural Services

• Ian Dearman

MBD (Metro Boulo Dodo)

• Ellie Brooks
• Andy Leeke
• Paul Long