Now up on YouTube, an #OnlineAutscape2025 “More Autistic Joy” presentation: “Sensory joy to the rescue: emotional containers and portable safe spaces” by Alicja Nocon.

Watch: https://youtu.be/1ArUdA_ZJio

Worksheet: https://www.autscape.org/2025/programme/handouts/sensory-joy-worksheet.pdf

“It's well-known that having a more sensitive nervous system means that autistic people experience more sensory triggers and are more easily dysregulated. But what if we could use our sensory sensitivity to our advantage to bring a sense of peace and joy to helps us get through difficult experiences? In this presentation, I will share a number of practical ways using sensory joy to help contain overwhelming emotions and prepare for unfamiliar of predictably stressful situations, based on my own experience and the experiences of my clients.”

Now online, one of the #OnlineAutscape2025 Lightning Talks: ‘Màiri Mhòr nan Òran: Gaelic poet, songwriter and activist’, by Max Marnau.
https://youtu.be/9E6QxbJNRSI

Now available on YouTube, an #OnlineAutscape2025 “More Autistic Joy” performance:

On the 7th of February at 20:30 GMT/UTC, autistic stand-up poet and BBC Radio 4 regular Kate Fox performed some of her pieces from last year’s hit Autscape show, the Dr Who-themed “Bigger on the Inside”, plus other poems which invoke autistic joy!

Content warning: Profanity, explicit references to sex.
Watch it at: https://youtu.be/c3_aYD89TUI

Now available on YouTube, an #OnlineAutscape2025 “More Autistic Joy” presentation:

On the 7th of February at 20:00 GMT/UTC, Jorik Mol, “professionally autistic”, presented “Now I wanna think about all the good times – The joys of Breaking the Boundaries”.

Watch now at: https://youtu.be/88-EGSq_dmg

Slides with clickable read-along links: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qEl3c4O8bVsB-oJ9lhLi-PCbRkV6Fbq6zZtx29cCOjk/edit#slide=id.g32b2dc19ab3_0_274

“Jorik's first book of 2025 is Breaking the Boundaries, describing his experiences as a lived experience mentor of autistic higher education students. These stories highlight the particular joys of being neuroqueer and finding one's community, gender joy, the joy of art, the joy of hyperfocus and the joy of fighting the good fight.”

Now available on YouTube, an #OnlineAutscape2025 “More Autistic Joy” presentation:

On the 7th of February at 19:30 GMT/UTC, Polish autistic special pedagogue Joanna Ławicka, Ph.D. presented “The joy of autistic parenting: how to build healthy and safe attachment in an autistic family”.

Watch now at: https://youtu.be/0Ht86QJeiKE

“I would like to present what attitudes of parents support building a secure attachment with an autistic child and how, as an autistic parent, to cope with your own, usually difficult life experience so as to be able to create a safe space and bond for your children. I will show what hinders us and how to make it easier.”

Registration for #OnlineAutscape2025 closes today at 16:00 GMT (which is 4pm UK time), so there's just over four hours left to register as of the time of this post! Links to everything (Zoom, Discord, TeamUp) will be sent to registered participants shortly after that.

Here's one last event highlight post. We've filled all twelve slots for five-minute Lightning Talks! In the image you can see some of the lightning talk presenters and a list of titles.

This autistic-led, autistic-run event is on from the 7th to the 9th.
Schedule & info: https://www.autscape.org/2025/programme/schedonline
Registration: https://www.autscape.org/2025/registration/

We've got just over 130 folks registered so far (update: 150+)! This is shaping up to be a great three days of online autistic community. Can we have one last boost for the last-minute deciders among us? Many thanks :)

Dear @actuallyautistic folks, I hope it is okay for me to briefly mention #Autscape here.

We're all autistic/neurodivergent and have organised residential autistic-led events in the UK for two decades.

We've got an international autistic-led *online* event on this weekend, #OnlineAutscape2025 “More #AutisticJoy”. Fee: £20. All money raised goes towards the cost of future events.

We'll have presentations, performances and community! See https://www.autscape.org/2025/programme/schedonline

Please follow @autscape. Thanks!

Only three days to go until #OnlineAutscape2025! Registration remains open!

Music is an essential source of joy to many autistic people. At Online #Autscape, we are not just talking, we are sharing our music! All performers on the programme are autistic and some are music professionals.

Join in to hear performances by:
- Katja Gottschewski, Meri Bourgeois and Martijn “McDutchie” Dekker on 8th February, 19:00-19:30 GMT
- James Pelham, piano recital on 8th February, 20:30-21:00 GMT
- Madge Woollard, chillout classical piano on 9th February 14:00-14:30 GMT.

This autistic-led, autistic-run event is on from the 7th to the 9th.
Schedule & info: https://www.autscape.org/2025/programme/schedonline
Registration: https://www.autscape.org/2025/registration/

Please help #Autscape out by boosting this for visibility. Thanks :)

Only four days to go until #OnlineAutscape2025 “More Autistic Joy”! Here's another highlight:

On the 9th of February at 12:30 GMT/UTC, Barnabear will present “The Joy of Engineering”. This talk draws on historic and current autistic figures in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics), and the speaker's own experience to explore the intrinsic motivation and joy that comes from challenge and achievement in these sectors.

This autistic-led, autistic-run event is on from the 7th to the 9th.
Schedule & info: https://www.autscape.org/2025/programme/schedonline
Registration: https://www.autscape.org/2025/registration/

Please help #Autscape out by boosting this for visibility. Thanks :)

At #OnlineAutscape2025 (7-9 Feb), we'll have #LightningTalks: participants are invited to hold a five-minute talk on any topic of their interest.

We are taking suggestions for 5-minute Lightning Talks until 5 pm GMT, Wednesday 5th February. Approved speakers get a £10 discount on the ticket. Those wishing to offer a lightning talk should contact Kacey by sending email to programme@autscape.org, indicating if they wish to speak on Saturday or Sunday.

More at: https://www.autscape.org/2025/programme/schedonline

Are you on other social media, too? Please follow #Autscape there as well and help us out by signal-boosting #OnlineAutscape2025!
Our other accounts are:

* Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/autscape.org

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/autscape/

* Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/autscape.org/

An #OnlineAutscape2025 “More Autistic Joy” highlight:

On the 8th of February at 20:00 GMT/UTC, Emily Slater, Lyric Schranz and Tokyo Attard from Malta will be presenting “Empowering Autistic Youth – Introducing the ACTIVATE Project”.

This autistic-led, autistic-run event is on from the 7th to the 9th.
Registration: https://www.autscape.org/2025/registration/
Schedule (still in flux): https://www.autscape.org/2025/programme/schedonline

Please boost for visibility. Thanks :)

Announcing #OnlineAutscape2025 “More Autistic Joy”: Fri 7th – Sun 9th February 2025, Zoom + Discord

A follow-up to #Autscape2024 “Autistic Joy”, this £20 online event reprises that theme. If you wish you'd been there last year, you don't want to miss this one! But we will also have plenty of new things for those who were there.

Among many other things, we will have a performance by the great autistic stand-up poet Kate Fox, a presentation by Joanna Ławicka on “The joy of autistic parenting”, a presentation on “Empowering Autistic Youth” by three young presenters from Malta, and the online version of our famed Sparklies in the Dark activity, a celebration of true autistic joy.

We will be using Zoom webinars to broadcast the presentations. In addition, there will be a space to socialise and organise participant-led activities on Discord.

Programme schedule:
https://www.autscape.org/2025/programme/schedonline

Registration will remain open until the event starts:
https://www.autscape.org/2025/registration/

Note: Autscape is led and run entirely by autistic or otherwise neurodivergent volunteers; nobody is getting paid for this! Autscape is a small UK Registered Charity and all the money raised goes into running our events. Your online registration will help support Autscape and keep fees for future in-person events as low as possible (in-person venues have become a *lot* more expensive since the pandemic).

If you could help us out by boosting this and spreading the word, we would be very grateful. Thanks :)

#Autscape (the European “#autistic conference” in the UK) now has this brand new account on the Fediverse (Mastodon). Please spread the word!

We also have some dates to announce (more info will be announced here and on www.autscape.org when available). Please reserve in your calendars:

#OnlineAutscape2025 “More Autistic Joy”:
7th-9th Feb 2025, Zoom + Discord

In-person #Autscape2025 “Evolving Autistic Space”:
4th-7th Aug 2025 @ The Hayes, Derbyshire