Curator: Celina Loh
Museum of the Home exhibition: Co-curated by Celina Loh and Lara Baclig
Production and access: In Transit
Funded by Arts Council England National Lottery Project Grant
An evolving project by Alison Lam exploring overwhelm, neurodivergent experience and the spaces between calm and chaos. The project began in Manchester before travelling to Westminster Reference Library and Museum of the Home in London, with each presentation adapting to its context.
Mind the Gap grew from workshops artist Alison Lam led with neurodivergent people across the UK, exploring different experiences of overwhelm through conversations, drawings and visual scores. Together, participants explored overwhelm as more than a difficult or negative experience, considering its connections to growth and possibility.
Alison brought these collective conversations into dialogue with her own experiences as a neurodivergent artist and mother of two autistic sons. The resulting exhibition combined moving image, sound, installation, drawing and participatory elements to invite audiences to encounter and reflect on different experiences of overwhelm.
We initially planned to tour the exhibition from SEESAW in Manchester to Westminster Reference Library in London. Following the two exhibitions, the Museum of the Home invited us to present the project there too. Each venue gave us an opportunity to reconsider how the work could respond to a different space, context and audience.
I was interested in how Naomi’s practice might translate into an exhibition that audiences could engage with in different ways and how those encounters might extend beyond looking at the work.
Interactive sculptures invited visitors to feel textures, pull levers, tie materials and leave marks for others to discover. Participation became part of the exhibition’s life, with visitors able to alter their encounters with the work and leave traces for those who followed.
We also integrated audio description into the exhibition, bringing spoken interpretation into conversation with the tactile elements. Visitors could explore textures while attending to the different shades of blue running through Naomi’s practice, and the personal associations these colours hold, from memories of her childhood bedroom to the expanse of a clear sky.
Walking prompts extended the exhibition into Manchester itself, inviting visitors to notice shadows, architectural details and other overlooked features along their everyday routes. The city became a continuation of the exhibition: a place to explore Naomi’s way of seeing and discover what might emerge from paying closer attention.
At SEESAW, we structured the exhibition as a journey from immersion to rest and reflection. An audiovisual installation led into a quieter space where suspended fabrics carried visual scores, drawings and conversations from the workshops. Visitors could contribute their own experiences, while the final area brought Alison’s existing work into dialogue with new pieces responding to the collective material.
Rather than recreate SEESAW’s immersive installation, we rethought how it could work within the library’s quieter setting. A contained structure with small openings allowed visitors to view the film and listen through headphones, inviting them to look into another person’s internal world rather than be placed directly inside it.
At Museum of the Home, we explored the relationship between overwhelm and the transition between home and the outside world. Alison often began workshops by asking, “How was your journey here today?” We used this question to consider how the museum’s rooms, corridors and garden could connect the work with the energy involved in moving between private and public space. The presentation was co-curated by Celina Loh and Lara Baclig.
In Transit supported the production process with visual guides, clear timelines and flexible planning. We built in regular breaks, allowed schedules to change and made space for people to communicate their needs.
We also made time to eat together and look after one another throughout the process. These everyday practices helped us build a more supportive working environment, recognising that access involves not only the practical conditions for participation but also how people feel within a collaboration.
For a project centred on overwhelm, how we worked together mattered as much as what we produced.
Lead Artist: Alison Lam
Curator: Celina Loh
Illustrator: Wilson So
Film Director: Michael Mui
Videographer: Matt Tam
Colourist: Anson Cheng
Sound Director: Moollon Kyen
Sound: Daniel Mailer
PA / Marketing: Cara Li
Performance Artist: Bettina Fung
Access Support: … Kruse
BTS: Andy Green. William Lam
Special thanks to: Studio KIND, The Care Lab, Venture Arts, eseacontemporary, Cosmos Club & All for One Club, Markfield, The Autism Hub, Camden Disability Youth Group & Fresh Youth, The Neurodiverse Family Support Network, Hackney Ark and Museum of the Home.