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“I am young person living in a time with war, corruption, discrimination, racial bias, gender inequality. Yet few appear outraged by these issues. People see minor progress towards equal society as having solved our issues completely and it just falls short.”

Back in March 2015, and I’ve done it I’ve solved social injustice. Standing in a lower-level space at an Oxford art venue for my regional heat of the Articulation prize, I was convinced that perhaps I just introduced this room full with adults and educators to the concept regarding gender equality. I felt proud with myself.

The Contest

This speaking award is a competition aimed at older teens, between 16 and 19, who are given a brief period to present on a work of art they select. I was told regarding this by my head of sixth form, and his room I had ended up in shortly prior to the competition. As a pupil, I performed well though talkative and easily distracted. I felt everything intensely often becoming emotional and upset.

My approach was a binary approach to my education: either be the best or don’t bother. During our meeting, we discussed my choice to drop a history course within weeks beginning it because I didn’t think it would be possible completing it with an A. “Not everything is death or glory,” he urged.

An Opportunity

Supported by my longsuffering art instructor, the director of sixth form saw that Articulation was the perfect chance that I needed – after all I loved art AS-level, and proved gobby as part of the school’s informal discussion group. He proposed I develop a talk for a preliminary in-school heat. From memory, I don’t think no one else participated.

Selecting a Topic

I chose to speak about Damien Hirst’s pharmacy installations, viewed previously during an exhibit at Tate Modern (a related print remains posted on my wall near my workspace). I encountered his creations for the first time as a child in north Devon, the north Devon town my elder relative was raised, and where the artist operated an eatery, the Quay, featuring preserved sea creatures, and wallpaper with tablet designs. I appreciated his work was funny and contrarian, and that he got away with calling whatever he wanted “art”. I loved that my relative disapproved. But maybe most of all, I enjoyed that, since the artwork took titles from song names from a punk record, I could say “Sex” (Pistols) several times during the talk. I felt like the boldest young thinker of my generation.

The Outcome

At the regional heat, nine other other speakers, all of whom had better cultural context, offered less unqualified, broad claims, and said “nonsense” rarely. I was awarded third place. As a teenager who tied most of her self-worth on achievement, typically this have been a crushing blow. But, in that moment, the fact that people seemed to enjoy, and had laughed exactly when I intended, felt enough.

A New Path

By the time Articulation invited me to present once more, this time as part of an event at the British Museum, I had sent in my paperwork to read art history at Oxford. Before the competition, I had thought I’d choose literature or languages, not considering top universities, where I knew I couldn’t become “top ranked”. Yet the experience had emboldened me and made me believe that my opinions deserved expression, even when I didn’t speak the lingo. I didn’t need perfection: I only had to put my spin to topics.

Finding Purpose

Discussing creativity – and learning how to entertain audiences while I do it – quickly became my guiding light. This contest experience completed itself when I was invited back this spring to be the first alumni evaluator for a competition round.

The event built my self-assurance beyond my degree choice: not that I would accomplish great things, but that I needn’t. I stopped requiring to covet perfection; I needed to lean into my own voice. I went from being nervous and fragile – emotional yet impatient to frustration – to someone who believed their own abilities. Perfection wasn’t to be perfect. For the first time, being genuine outweighed importance over ideal outcomes.

Gratitude

I remain thankful to the college leader who took time to understand me when I was an obstinate and emotional young adult, instead of rolling his eyes (in retrospect, some irritation might have been understandable). Life isn’t is death or glory; I realized it is often worth trying without requiring guarantees of “victory”.