We talked about identity, and especially about your family history. There are different lines, one that maybe goes back to Angola, one to Portugal, and one to a Roma heritage. You told me about Dubai where you moved to when you were ten. How awkward it sometimes felt. A sort of uprootedness in this city where probably 80 percent of the people are foreigners. You told me how this made you feel in-between, a nomad identity. Drifting between worlds where it is challenging to find roots. Also, the strict regulations in Dubai make it not easy to fully express your identity in freedom. 

Also, you made a video work with tiles in which you made a connection between your Portuguese heritage and the Dutch tradition of blue tiles on the Island of Schiermonnikoog. And that your former work - in which you used an AI program that started to recognize your way of making and visual interest - has maybe also to do with identity? 

In the end, we were talking about how in your essay you could go into the background of your family history. You could collect interviews with your relatives in which you try to learn more about the stories of your ancestors. Is there a colonial line? You were also telling me about how due to different family lines there’s a bit of racism in the family (tension between relatives) and also how you experienced racism yourself in Portugal while your brothers have less to cope with this because of their white skin. Next to the stuff you collect in your interviews with relatives, you could also go into your own life experiences concerning this matter. Next to that, you could also see if you can put certain stories of your family into a historical perspective (for instance the history of Portugal, Angola, and Roma in Portugal, or check if there are Portuguese historical objects you can link to this history?). I also put in the Silex texts about belonging (post 1), nomad identity (post 2), and about in-between identities which sometimes is also related to the term Liminality and Hybridity (post 3). See connections.

Two Venice Biennale Pavilions Focus on #Roma Experiences, Including the First One Ever Dedicated to a #Romani Artist | Artnet News

You can use google scholar and the search engine of the Minerva library.

If you search within these search engines on the basis of your keywords you might find interesting sources.

You can find more search engines under the following link:

https://padlet.com/Silex/sources-search-engines-and-social-networks-for-research-mwhkztl0i93t4tgz

You already have an interesting start for the thesis/final essay. You will go into your family history connected with the history of colonialism entangled with questions concerning (your) identity and the concepts of FE and Lypophrenia (that refers to a feeling of sadness without cause, mostly when you miss someone.)

This is probably relatable to the history of the Calon Romani: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.964668/full   You told about how your ancestors were driven away from Portugal by the Christians and how they were paradoxically received with open hands in Brazil by Brazilian Christians. Use historical sources for this (and your interviews and experience off course), make references. You were also talking about how there is again a kind of colonialism going on. For instance, Westerns are invited with open hands that don’t have to pay that much tax while the Portuguese Romani are excluded.  

You can use interviews and letters for the thesis in which you try to tell the story of your ancestors and how this affects your identity (FE) and how it is related to the contemporary circumstances in Portugal. In your research it’s also interesting to involve your work. How is this related to this context. You can do this like your former process essay. This is a good starting point.

Already make notes that you later can use for your essay.

I can also recommend you to tap into the following artists: Małgorzata Mirga-Tas https://roma-biennale.com/artists/malgorzata-mirga-tas/  and Morena  https://www.morenabambergerart.com/art-installations

You were also discussing to make use of letters, to write a letter to your future self. Also you were thinking about to use music in relation to your sculptures. This mind be an interesting perspective. Do you also want to use Romani music for this? Write about your experiments and try-outs, what worked and worked not and why it didn’t or did work?

Best regards,

Hille

Since the studios reopened, I’ve been there every day, working on different aspects of my sculpture. I’ll show you some pictures to give you a sense of what I’ve been doing.

I’ve decided to create a sculpture of a human figure using a combination of plaster and clay. What’s important about this piece is that I’m incorporating gaps or cracks in the sculpture, as if it's breaking apart in places. When you look closer, inside these gaps, you’ll see elements that represent what we typically consider "neurodivergent" traits. But the message I’m trying to convey is that these traits are not abnormal—they’re simply part of what it means to be human.

Inspired by The Myth of the Normal Brain, I want to challenge the idea that there is such a thing as a "normal" brain. The sculpture isn’t just about neurodivergence—it’s about the human condition as a whole. We all have different strengths and weaknesses, whether we’re labeled neurotypical or neurodivergent, and these differences are natural and valuable. I want to show that what we often see as cracks or flaws can actually be places where deeper truths about our humanity lie.

In addition to the sculpture, I’m also working on a video component. The video will be shown from the perspective of a neurodivergent mind, giving the viewer a sense of how it feels to experience the world differently. But rather than focusing on the challenges, I want to highlight the strengths and advantages that come with neurodivergence—things like creativity, unique problem-solving abilities, and sensitivity. It’s important to me that this work doesn’t portray neurotypicals or neurodivergents as fundamentally different, but rather shows that we all have a mix of advantages and disadvantages.

Overall, my goal is to dismantle the myth of the "normal" brain and celebrate the diversity of how people think and experience the world. Through both the sculpture and the video, I hope to create a piece that makes people reconsider what we consider "normal" and recognize the value in all types of minds.

I’ve come to realize that my exploration of neurodivergence is really about understanding myself—how my brain works and what makes me unique. For a long time, I thought my interest was focused on understanding how other people’s minds function. But the more I dig into this, the more I see that my own brain has been the central mystery I’ve been trying to solve all along.

Looking back at the projects I’ve done at art school, I see a pattern: they all revolve around figuring out what fuels my mind. I’ve researched everything from drugs and family history to artificial intelligence, even trying to create different versions of myself as an artist, just to understand my creative process. More recently, I’ve dived into studying every culture that’s touched my life, trying to understand how that impacts me and other Third Culture Kids.

Through it all, I’ve discovered my true hyperfixation: figuring out who I am. It’s almost like I’m playing the role of a moral philosopher, asking questions like: What’s right? What should I be doing? Am I even doing this correctly? And sometimes, I just wish someone could tell me what to do, because decision fatigue is real.

I often feel like I’m stuck in the middle, somewhere between certainty and endless questioning. I feel deeply about certain things, but when someone presents a solid argument, I can end up questioning my own views again. It’s like my mind is wired to see multiple perspectives, which can be both a gift and a challenge.

I’ll admit that at times, I’ve felt lost in all this research, especially when trying to follow every piece of advice from my professors—some of whom don’t really listen to me. Now, I’m not even sure what I want to say anymore. But I do know that I don’t want to create an “us versus them” narrative, and I don’t want to be political about it—that’s just not who I am.

What I do want is to show the beauty of neurodivergence, the strengths that come with it. I’m diving deeper into the research because I want to be well-informed, but I’m not interested in framing neurotypicals as the ones controlling everything—we’ve heard that story enough.

Over the past year, many of my friends have been diagnosed with ADHD or autism, and I’ve seen how much it’s affected them. It’s like this strange sense of knowing something was different about you but not being able to pinpoint it. I get it. It’s like someone handing you a powerful tool—say, an electric saw—but no one told you to plug it in, so you’re cutting down trees by hand when it could have been done in minutes.

I’ve known from a young age that I was different. My family knew it too. I mean, how does the only girl in a family of four boys get into more trouble than any of them? I wasn’t diagnosed until later, thanks to growing up in a small country with limited resources. But because I had some awareness early on, I’ve developed ways to navigate it. I’ve come to realize that some of the things I once saw as hurdles are actually strengths when I know how to use them.

Sure, I’m probably not the kind of person who works on assignments bit by bit, steadily working my way toward a deadline. Instead, I’m likely to finish 20 minutes before it’s due, chugging coffee and barely scraping by. But if you need someone to plan an entire event in 20 minutes when everything has gone wrong, I’m your person.

No, I can’t sit through a two-hour seminar on woodworking history. But if you put me in a workshop with the materials, I’ll figure out how to make something in five minutes. That actually happened during my first year at Minerva—it was wild.

We’re so conditioned to think of neurodivergence as a curse, but I don’t see it that way anymore. Maybe it’s challenging, but so is being neurotypical—we just don’t talk about that as much because we live in a society built around neurotypical norms.

My goal is to show that hyperfixations, hypersensitivities, and everything else that comes with neurodivergence are not deficits but strengths. We just need to view them in a different light, and maybe then we’ll see the gifts they bring.