INTERVIEW Future Collaborations

Image: Warm Digits by Victoria Wai

AutismAble is a service aimed at helping people with Autism Spectrum Conditions, to enable, empower and enrich the lives of its members across the North East. I spoke to Service Development Director Andrew Forster about Future Collaborations Festival, an annual showcase event that brings together neurodivergent and neurotypical people, as well as established artists and young students from AutismAble’s music tuition programme, in an inclusive environment that provides crucial learning and development opportunities for its members.

“Future Collaborations is a Youth Music-funded programme that we have been running since 2022. It is essentially a grassroots music tuition programme that encourages both neurodivergent and neurotypical participants to enrol and collaborate, often in shared learning groups,” explained Andrew. “The idea for a festival originally emerged from course lead tutor Ian Black [aka multi-instrumentalist and weird-pop artist SLUG]. He suggested expanding the programme into a larger-scale event that would bring together established musicians and bands alongside neurodiverse artists who had participated in the programme. We then spoke to music promoter David Littlefair, who suggested that the Arts Council might be interested in this work and he then supported us with the application, which was successful.”

This year Future Collaborations comes to Pop Recs Ltd. in Sunderland on Saturday 26^th April and will feature Warm Digits, Me Lost Me, Camel Island, OldMan and Samuel Frame, alongside bands that have formed through the programme such as Token, Erratics and Ophir, and The AutismAble Youth Music Group. As well as the music, the festival also offers its members invaluable opportunities for events and music industry experience in areas such as stage management, sound and lighting, ticket sales, road crew support, ushering, health and safety, marketing, refreshments, artist liaison and clean up.

We hope that some of the young people involved will transition into employment within the industry, whether as musicians, event coordinators or technical support staff

Going forward, the festival hopes to raise awareness within the local music scene and with local music venues and promoters to ensure more opportunities for people who are neurodiverse to perform, in environments that can perhaps be challenging and problematic. I asked Andrew what he and AutismAble’s hopes were for Future Collaboration Festival in the years to come.

“Our goal is to establish Future Collaborations as an annual event, continuing to create positive experiences for all involved while increasing awareness of autism and neurodiversity within the wider community. In the long-term, we aspire for the festival to become financially self-sustaining through ticket sales. We hope that some of the young people involved will transition into employment within the industry, whether as musicians, event coordinators or technical support staff.”

“Ultimately, our ideal vision would be to hand over the festival’s leadership to our students, allowing them to take full ownership of the event as a grassroots festival, with Ian and myself stepping into supportive advisory roles where needed.”

Future Collaborations comes to Pop Recs Ltd. in Sunderland on Saturday 26^th April. 

Image by: Me Lost Me by Amelia Read