Oughtism Multimodal Seminar, Day 2

A multimodal seminar series on neurodivergent ways of living in the world

Hosted by Christine Shaw and Steven Eastwood
Presented by the Blackwood Gallery
Supported by the UTM/JHI Annual Seminar

Oughtism is a seminar series which expands the Blackwood Gallery’s 2025­–26 exploration of neurodivergent doing, feeling and being, and sets out to conjure linguistic and embodied possibilities for being that resist neurotypical logic.

Free and open to the public. Lunch and light refreshements provided.
Visit our website for full program descriptions and contributor biographies.

Click here for a detailed campus map and here for directions to UTM.

Meet and Greet with Tour of STIM CINEMA
Snack and hot beverages provided
Blackwood Gallery, Kaneff Centre room 140
10am

Languaging at the Periphery
Workshop with Chris Martin
Spigel Hall, Davis Building room 1104
11am-12:30pm

Lunch Break
Food and beverages provided
Kaneff Centre, room L1220
12:30pm

Counter-Cartographies: Neurodivergence and the Errancies of Performance
Talk by Leon J. Hilton
Spigel Hall, Davis Buiding room 1104
1:30-2:30pm

Afternoon Break
Snack and hot beverages provided
Spigel Hall, Davis Buidlng room 1104
2:30pm

Stimprovisation
Workshop with Dr. Aby Watson
Dance Studio, Davis Building room 0128
3-4:45pm

William G. Davis Building

In the Davis Building, Spigel Hall is located in room 1104 on Level 1 and the Dance Studio is located on Level 0. The Davis Building (DV) is connected to the Recreation, Athletics, and Wellness Centre (RAWC), which is located on the south-east corner of campus. DV can be accessed from Inner Circle Road, and RAWC from Outer Circle Road. Both buildings are AODA-compliant, with wide doorways and powered doors. Accessible multiuser gendered washrooms are located on the Levels 0 and 1. Spigel Hall is a large space with floor to ceiling windows, diaphanous curtains, and flexible seating .The Dance Studio is a medium-sized open room with hardwood floors and two mirrored walls, and is available throughout both seminar days as a quiet, low-sensory space for reflection, processing, and rest. Next door on Level 0, Multi-Purpose Room A will be available on Saturday, February 7 for additional sensory-seeking, play, and interaction. This mirrored space is equipped with a ping pong table and rubber floors. Watch this video for directions to the Dance Studio and Multi-Purpose Room A from the RAWC’s Welcome Desk.

A free shuttle bus will run from Toronto to Mississauga on Friday, February 6 and Saturday, February 7, following the schedule below.

9am: Departure from Hotel Ocho (195 Spadina Ave., Toronto, ON M5T 2C3)
10am: Arrival at the University of Toronto Mississauga (3359 Mississauga Road
Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6)
5:30pm: Departure from University of Toronto Mississauga
6:30pm: Arrival at Hotel Ocho

Sign up for the shuttle bus on your registration order form.

Accessibility notes: While all stops are AODA-compliant and free of physical barriers, we regret that the shuttle bus is not accessible.

Info: Snack and hot beverages provided. Please indicate dietary needs on the registration order form.

Info: We live in a society where words are worn out, overworked, and underestimated. Standardized language practices lead to “canned” and “dehydrated” discourse, to borrow two of Adam Wolfond’s terms. In his work as a teacher and editor, Chris Martin has found autistic languaging to be a uniquely restorative force, a thriving and wild ecosystem of expression that allows words to replenish and reroot themselves. And often this languaging flourishes most fully along what Imane Boukaila calls “the periphery.” Chris is eager to introduce you to some of this languaging and the autistic writers who offer it forth. We’ll dance with words like winding and gilling and twallowing and yeralding. We’ll meet them at the periphery and extend the choreography, engaging in some of our own collective languaging.

Info: Food and beverages provided. Please indicate dietary needs on the registration order form.

Info: Leon J. Hilton will discuss his book Counter-Cartographies: Neurodivergence and the Errancies of Performance (2025), which asks: “What if we embraced neurodivergent ways of being not as deviations to be corrected but as vital ways of inhabiting the world? What new realities might emerge?” Engaging the work of Fernand Deligny, alongside close readings of works by William Pope.L, Mel Baggs, Wu Tsang, and others, Hilton’s exploration of performance and performativity reveals how the norm of neurotypical reality is continually reinforced through acts of doing, redoing, and undoing. Counter-Cartographies offers a bold reimagining of neurological difference, moving beyond rigid diagnostic frameworks to uncover more expansive, generative modes of existence.

Info: Snack and hot beverages provided. Please indicate dietary needs on the registration order form.

Info: Stimprovisation is stimming improvisation, an embodied creative practice of sensory-seeking, instant composition. Discovered and coined during Dr. Aby Watson's doctoral research and developed as a somatic practice for neurodivergent people, stimprovisation acts to liberate neurodivergent embodiments through a choreographic practice of ‘unmasking’. In this playful workshop, neuroqueer choreographer Aby Watson shares her process of stimprovisation: sensory-seeking improvisation through practices of movement (stimdance), object (stimplements), and voice (sensinging), directed by the sensorial curiosity of the bodymind. This workshop offers a practical introduction to stimprovising. You do not need performance experience to join us, only a willingness to play and explore! Come wearing clothes suitable for movement and embodied play.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Blackwood Gallery, 3359 Mississauga Road, Mississauga, Canada

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