KnoxRoxs:
Autistic Joy
A Photozine Retrospective Exhibition by Jen White-Johnson
September 8 - October 10, 2025
Join us for these corresponding events!!
September 18, 2025 6:30-8:30PM
Artist Talk 6:30PM in the Black Box Theatre
Immediately followed by a reception in the gallery
October 8, 2025 5:30-8:30PM
Autistic Justice & Joy, A Disability Zine Making Workshop
more information and registration coming soon!
The Framework: Disabled Mothering as Resistance
My journey as an artist is deeply intertwined with my role as a parent. It wasn't until my son was diagnosed as autistic at age three that I began to fully embrace my own neurodivergence. I recognize my art and design practice as a critical tool for redefining my role as a disabled parent raising a disabled child. This perspective informs a framework I call "Disabled Mothering as an Act of Resistance."
This framework aims to empower and activate change, amplifying what happens when we center disabled parenting. It's a weapon of creative resistance that dismantles the demonization and social inaccuracies often aimed at autistic children and adults. Now more than ever, we need designs crafted by disabled artists for the disabled community. Disabled artists are the blueprint.
A Personal Journey
From a young age, I knew I was different. While I was gleefully goofy at home and with friends, I experienced selective mutism in school due to being overwhelmed and to avoid bullying. Art became a tool and a language that didn't discriminate. It allowed me to be my authentic self and carried me through college and into motherhood. As a parent, masking my disabilities became harder, prompting me to explore how my art could be a powerful tool for community engagement and advocacy, celebrating disability joy.
My advocacy journey began with a photo zine, KnoxRoxs, released in 2018, dedicated to my autistic son, and re-released in 2024, with additional photography. This project was a way to provide much-needed visibility to children of color within neurodivergent communities. I hope this exhibition is the first of many opportunities to co-curate disability-centered shows, continuing to disrupt and dismantle social stigmas.
Jen White-Johnson (she/they) is an Afro-Latina, disabled, and neurodivergent art activist, designer, and educator whose visual work explores the intersection of content and caregiving, emphasizing the redesign of ableist visual culture. As an artist-educator with Graves' disease and ADHD, her heart-centered and electric approach to disability advocacy bolsters these movements with invaluable currencies: powerful, dynamic art and media that all at once educate, bridge divergent worlds, and build a future that mirrors her Autistic son’s experience. Mothering as an Act of Resistance is central to Jen’s art and design practice and philosophy, as she channels this energy into her work.In October 2018, Jen released a Disability advocacy photo zine entitled "KnoxRoxs" published by Homie House Press, dedicated to her Autistic son, as a way to give visibility to Black and Latinx children in the autism community. Since its release, the zine has received national and international recognition, being included in various Art Book fairs in DC, New York, Milan, and London. Literary features include AfroPunk, Juxtapoz Magazine, and Bmore Art, among other publications. Jen has presented her disability justice activist work and collaborated with brands and art spaces across print and digital media, such as Coachella, Apple, Adobe, PBS and The Whitney Museum of Art. The KnoxRoxs zine is permanently archived at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. A continuation of the zine titled KnoxRoxs: Autistic Joy, a Retrospective, was released in 2024. Jen has an MFA in Graphic Design from the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she teaches design. She lives in Baltimore, MD, with her husband and son.
