Collection: Michael Engebretson

A member of Interact’s performing arts cast, Michael Engebretson brings a sketchbook everywhere, filling the pages with ballpoint pen drawings that he later embellishes with watercolor. His work illuminates an intricately mapped future existence beyond Earth, where inhabitants travel through galaxies by spaceship and live on distant moons. The residents of this intergalactic civilization are hybrid beings. Embracing their human, cyborg, and extraterrestrial qualities, they develop more equitable healthcare systems and renewable energy sources. “Their society is far more advanced than us,” says Michael.

An avid autism advocate, Michael would like viewers of his work to understand how, as he says, “the autistic mind operates.” He describes the way that his brain works as “just like a cyborg: part human, and part machine,” and he hopes that his work will help people to understand the beauty and vitality of neurodiversity. “Minds, minds can coexist,” he says. “Can can coexist with other people, with everybody. Isn’t that awesome?”