If our brain were to let all daily stimuli through, it becomes chaos in our heads. And also in our bodies! But how do your brain and body process everything that comes in? And how can we empathize with someone whose stimulus processing works differently than our own? For example by creating conditions through which we can experience stimuli differently?
Schweigman& took the initiative for the long-term project Prikkel, because we felt the need to give this – for many people – very personal, but also urgent social theme more attention. For many people, stimulus processing is something they struggle with on a daily basis. Our society as a whole is also under pressure. More and more people feel rushed and lived by outside impulses. We hardly take time to dwell on our body’s signals anymore and become detached from ourselves and each other. It causes a variety of complaints, with overstrain and burnout increasingly on the horizon. This observation led to the question, “Are we collectively overstimulated and what can we learn about stimulus processing from neurodivergent people?”
The artists and scholars who created new work for the exhibition Prikkel in residence at Buitenplaats Doornburgh are: Johannes Bellinkx, Margriet van Breevoort, Roos van Geffen, Silvana Hurtado-Dianderas, Vinny Jones, Anouk Keizer, Molly Palmer, Boukje Schweigman, Deanne Spek, Shertise Solano and Odile van Stuijvenberg.
With this project – in which we collaborate cross-domain and from a coherence of perspectives with Buitenplaats Doornburgh, the HKU and the UMCU – we want to give more familiarity to the subject of stimulus processing. To create more understanding for ourselves and for the other. To deal with each other out of respect, curiosity, tolerance and recognition.
Practical information
The exhibition PRIKKEL (Stimulus) took place from October 6 2023 till January 7 2024 at Doornburgh – country estate for art and science – in Maarssen, closeby Utrecht.
Download the press kit of PRIKKEL here.
Listen to De Prikkelpodcast
In the podcast series De Prikkelpodcast we talk to a (neuro)diverse group of guests about stimuli and stimulus processing. The motto of the podcast series is: ‘Only in a conversation with the other, do you discover how differently you experience the world’. Through the conversations we investigated how the differences in experiencing the world do or do not influence behavior, mood and the everyday existence of people. In the exhibition Prikkel, the artists and scientists who put together the exhibition challenge you to undergo and experience the differences in stimulus processing. In De Prikkelpodcast the experts by experience or closely involved people themselves are central. In the ten episodes you can expect heartwarming conversations about high sensitivity and creativity, about dyslexia, about being diagnosed with autism at a later age, AD(H)D, color blindness and coping mechanisms and about the experience of young people with overstimulation at school. You can listen to the podcast in your favorite podcast app. It’s in spoken Dutch language.