2025 ACT Young Australian of the Year Daniel Bartholomaeus

Australian Community Media

Meet Your Australians - 2025 ACT Young Australian of the Year Daniel Bartholomaeus. ACM is proud to be media partner for the 2025 Australian of the Year Awards.

Transcript

00:00I am an artist, a visual artist in fact, and I am a neurodiverse and autistic person.

00:10I had a bit of an English language delay growing up and I wasn't able to express myself very

00:18well and so what I would do if I had a stressful situation or something that upset me, I would

00:24draw it.

00:25I think art has the power to be able to express how you feel, but it's also, art is also being

00:32able to showcase all different sorts of talents and abilities.

00:37So my dream is to be able to hero people with a disability and to be able to show what they

00:44can do, not what they can't do.

00:47Being able to champion that and showcase that through visual art and also music as well.

00:57So I've been able to work with the National Gallery, so I've been doing the Sensory Sunday,

01:03which is an art program where we just get young kids at a time when the gallery is quieter.

01:10Usually neurodiverse people who have a disability or have someone with a disability come together

01:14and they do art, they come look at the new exhibition that's open.

01:19Yeah, I really enjoy that.

01:22I've also been able to work with the United Nations, I've been a young mentor with Daydream Machine.

01:29We've got Studio And, Studio And is an art program actually for neurodiverse people or

01:36people with a disability.

01:37I believe neurodiverse people, they tend, neurodiverse people love hanging out with

01:41neurodiverse people, so being able to bring them together there has been really awesome.

01:46I've been able to mentor so many amazing young kids who live with a disability or are neurodiverse

01:53and they are some of the most intelligent, most talented, most amazing people I've ever met.

02:00Being autistic is okay, being strange is okay, being weird is okay.

02:07Having a disability to me is like an ability and being able to showcase that is my dream.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended