Befriending My Brain – Eden Fay

29 May – 19 July 2025

 

Eden Fay is an Oxfordshire based textile Artist. The project Befriending My Brain explores both a realising and embracing of their neurodivergent identity. Fay‘s mindful art practice helps them process their experience and express the duality of their inner world. 

 

Realising I was autistic when I was 32 changed my entire perception of myself. It made me question so many things about my past, how much I’d struggled with my mental health my whole life, and how often I felt like a square peg forcing myself into a round hole.

It also made so much make sense, and I am still exploring this new found self-compassion I have for who I am now, and my past self who didn’t know why things felt so hard.

I first showed Befriending my Brain a year ago. It was a visual journey of me trying to make friends with my busy, sensitive, confusing and overwhelming mind. A way of beginning to come to terms with my newly-realised neurodivergence.

Now, at 34, I have diagnoses of Autism and ADHD. I’ve added new pieces to the body of work, taken some away, and cut some up to make them feel more like me. Finding and getting to know yourself is a lifelong practice. And sometimes you need to cut things up and rearrange them to make them fit better.

I process the world through creating and through words. This show is my way of processing my new identity, which has bought both deep relief and total chaos. My nervous system feels simultaneously at peace, and like a tornado on legs.

I love letting both sides of me play when I’m making: the chaotic brush marks and ripping of fabric, the clash of colours and sparkly textures – balanced with quiet, mindful slow stitching and hand-quilting.

I’m learning to embrace all the parts of me, which is not a linear process. I hope this exhibition helps you to reflect on your own relationship with your brain.