Pum’s interests lie at the confluence of the neurobiology of autism and the impact of interoceptive, sensory-motor disruption to the ontogenesis of the Self, and the role of creative movement-based processes in its repair and nurture. Her creative practice is driven by her fundamental need to make sense in order to cope, learn and grow. Her art-making plays an integral part in her ability to manage her life with autism. Her collage praxis is fundamentally private in its origin. It supports her process and develops insights into her ideas, feelings, and experiences.
Pum’s creative research praxis is underpinned by a practice-led methodology, and informed by her rich understanding of a variety of different disciplines, from psychoanalysis, through object relations, to quantum biology, and a growing appreciation of affective neuroscience and the neurobiology of our human condition. Her eclectic and collaged approach sees her adapt and adopt the ideas of wide-ranging thinkers, philosophers and theorists, from Bahktins Dialogism to Bohm’s insights into the close relationship between science and art. Everything can be made of use of after the fragments have settled and they are distilled in the melting pot of her mind, she finds a synthesis that the creative process affords her.
Pum has worked with children with autism spectrum disorder and has recently published her first papers, co-authored with Delafield-Butt and Trevarthen. These advance new perspective of the embodied mind in autism, with knowledge of disruption to sensorimotor experience and challenges to self- and intersubjective-regulation of arousal. Her new work advances understanding of intra-personal meaning-making of a kinetic and embodied dimensionality in autism.
Pum retains her commitment to an independent and creative perspective and her belief in life-long learning.
A sample of Pum’s artwork can be viewed at the Welcome Trust Collection, and at various events and venues in Scotland. Her first research paper is available as a part of a volume on autism, with a free copy available; the second was published in Psychoanalytic Inquiry.