What does it mean to grow up autistic in a digital world?

Follow the story of an autistic person ‘growing up online’ – navigating message boards, building a digital avatar and finding new friends.

In this digital space, they learn, explore, and discover new ways to connect, access education, and find work outside of social barriers and stigma.

Voyager 2000: Worldbeing & Wonder invites you on a sensory, emotional, and digital journey through art, technology, and the world we build online. It is shaped by the conversations and experiences of autistic and disabled people from SEN schools, support groups, video games, and other online spaces.

Through video art, animation, sculpture, paintings, drawings, photography, and more, this exhibition explores how art and technology, from TV to Tumblr, video games to dating apps, have shaped lives, identity, intimacy, and imagination.

About the exhibition

Unlike many stories about technology that focus on risk, harm, or surveillance, this exhibition highlights how art and digital tools can support imagination, connection, education, and new opportunities for employment.

For autistic and disabled communities, especially, these tools may open up new ways to communicate, learn, and form relationships outside of social barriers.

The exhibition also explores how visual communication, shaped by online experiences, can be used offline to create more inclusive spaces, where connection and understanding come more easily to everyone.

Essex and the making of social networks

The exhibition’s name comes from Voyager 2000, an early interactive TV system tested in Colchester’s schools that gave people their first taste of on-demand content, learning, and online games.

From Essex’s early innovations – like Chelmsford’s pioneering radio and Colchester’s world-first mass multiplayer online game (MUD) – to today’s platforms like OnlyFans, Essex has helped shape the world’s social networks we use now.

What to Expect

Move through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood as the exhibition takes you through rooms themed around human stories shaped by technology.

Discover artworks like green-screen music videos, nostalgic Tumblr influenced photographs, anime-inspired works, Instagram art history meme graphics, tapestries of blog selfies, and sculptures made from LEGO and found materials.

See new commissions by artist S from our Holiday Fun programme alongside works by artists selected through an open call.

Highlights include:

• Rachel Maclean’s surreal digital videos and photographs commenting on information overload and social media addiction
• Photographs by Essex-born autistic artist Sam Morris, who explores the use of LGBTQ+ mobile apps for physical intimacy between men

Featuring artists

Astra Zero, Bernard Cohen, Brian Eno, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, David Watkins, Eduardo Paolozzi, Emily Mulenga, Flo Brooks, Georgia Dymock, Gabby R, Haydar Kafala, James Robert Morrison, Jean Claracq, Joel from Artbox, Juanrie Strydom, Juliana Huxtable, Margaret Mellis, Peter Sedgley, Qualeasha Wood, Rachel Maclean, Robyn Denny, Sam Morris, Sian Fan, Ted Atkinson, and Victor Vasarely, S from Holiday Fun Programme.

With contributions from Holiday Fun programme families, CLIP Sound and Music, Acorn Village artists, and anonymous artists.

Accessibility

As part of our mission to bring art and its benefits to all of the people of East Anglia, this is how we designed the exhibition experience:

• Multiple formats: Text, diagrams, and images to support visual and verbal communication
• Large print & plain English guides available in the gallery
• Social stories of the show can be found here
• Mixed-height displays for wheelchair users and different age groups
• Some works have subtitles, audio descriptions and audio guides
• Touch-friendly artworks, clearly marked with blue hand symbols
• Benches throughout the space and portable stools available
• Relaxed exhibition openings every Saturday from 10am-11am with lower sound and lighting
• Gallery 4 have low-level lighting to support digital artworks

If you have specific accessibility needs or feedback, please email us at [email protected]. We’re here to help and ensure your visit is enjoyable and welcoming.

Please note: Gallery 3 contains artworks with nudity and themes around sex and mental health. Get in touch if you’d like further details ahead of visiting.

Support

• Advice and guidance for autistic people and families – National Autistic Society – www.autism.org.uk
• Advice and support for people and families with SEND: SENDIASS – www.essexsendiass.co.uk
• LGBTQ+ support service – Outhouse – www.theouthouse.org.uk
• Sexual heath advice, testing, and support – Essex Sexual Health Service – www.essexsexualhealthservice.org.uk
• Support for male and non-binary sexual assault survivors – SurvivorsUK – www.survivorsuk.org
• Eating disorder support – BEAT – www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk
• Mental health advice and support – MIND – www.mind.org.uk