Artistic Heroes-A collection of Autistic Creatives!
Steven Atme brought together his community to show the talents of autistic people. Everything from playing instruments, singing, cooking and even karate! It was an awesome event and showed the creativity of many people along the spectrum, even our very own Ben Bisanti!
I asked Steven how he was able to make a unique film like this and what his purpose was in making it.
Sierra: Why did you make this?
Steven: It’s been a year and a half of quarantine, so I thought about what could we in the older generation do to change the outlook of life for younger people. What can we do to improve the mental health of autistic people who have felt neglected? I asked people if they have enough time to record just five minutes of what they do to help make their lives better. I set out to find these people to show what they do to return to normal. It made a huge impact and it really lifted people’s spirits! To see themselves on screen with their own segment really made their day!
Sierra: How did you find this many people to highlight?
Steven: I was only expecting three or four people to submit videos, but I ended up getting twenty-one! It was through mutual connections and my following on facebook through my musical background. The options were endless to what kind of videos people could submit, and some submitted multiple videos to the project and I chose what was best. I gathered their stories and used what technology I had to put all of it together!
Sierra: What was your favourite part of putting this together?
Steven: Every time people came to me with new ideas, I accepted them right away and was so excited to share them with everyone! Editing it all together and talking about every awesome person who contributed to this was like a big puzzle and it was great to add them all together! Finding all these people who had stuff in common, I was hoping to present the talents each person had and show they can relate to each other by comparing their experiences. By showcasing their skills, I was able to look through all the challenges they had been through to achieve those skills. Each skill takes a lot of hardship to reach, and I wanted to inspire others with that.
Sierra: What inspired you to make this?
Steven: I was a kid growing up in the 90’s and being diagnosed as autistic led to being underestimated by doctors and being bullied by my peers. It was heart-wrenching to go through that and overcoming it made me determined to make sure that no one else has to go through what I did.
I reach people of all ages and nurture their dreams to make them feel valued. I encourage their talents so they can realize they have as much potential as non-autistic people. Artistic heroes was made to show others with autism that they can achieve their dreams.
“Every time people came to me with new ideas, I accepted them right away and was so excited to share them with everyone! ”
Sierra: What do you wish more people knew about autisitic individuals?
Steven: One thing said to the Honorable Mike Lake was that “You’d be surprised what the capabilities of autistic people are if you give them not only second chances but many more chances.” If everybody in society does this, not just the doctors or parents, autistic people will excel in many surprising ways.
Through what they create you will be able to see what’s inside and see the potential autistic individuals have, if you look into their eyes, you will be able to include them when you understand what they have gone through.
Sierra: What are you working on in the meantime?
Steven: I write music full time, and write on musecore, a software where you can plug in any musical device with usb and I use that to write my original compositions.
Creaversity, a program I’ve been running for two and a half years, is a program for autistic individuals to express themselves through music. I will be bringing back the program after labour day and I am so excited to be doing in person sessions again!
Sierra Lynne
About the author
Sierra is a long-time producer and he has a Diploma in Jounralism and Communications from Okanagan College. He is the content creator for Spectrum.