"Can you hear me? Kids with Autism Painting Exhibition

The Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science supports and advocates the Child-Friendly Cities initiative, so they launched a strategic conference with UNICEF on CFC initiative in Beijing. To further promote the initiative and platform, we curated painting exhibitions of autism kids to raise public awareness, inspire societal understanding and initiate further campaign, communications and collaboration.The perceived autistic genius phenomenon leads the public to wrongly believe autistic kids are talented and artistic. For a family participating any non-profit exhibition in China, their kids’ drawings have to fit certain artistic standard. The reality for autistic children to draw, to sing, to participate any sports activities is to help them communicate, channel their emotions, and learn to develop their motor coordination skills, not to categorize them as genius. Instead of showcasing the 'perfect' selected drawings, we collaborated with Autistic school nationally and curated kids with autism paintings from the beginning to the present. Helped general public follow the challenging journey the kids and their families have to walk through.There are five schools and 31 kids nationally joined the campaign. The exhibition was a non-profit event fully supported by our agency. The Chengpin Bookstore pitched in after knowing the exhibition, and shared that the exhibition was the first most welcomed event by the kids in the community. UNICEF China Representative wrote a personal letter to all participated families to recognize their tenacity and bravery. It has made significant impact on those families.