I’m no Malcolm Turnbull but it’s been a fucking WEEK.
On Wednesday I was gallery sitting for an exhibition that, coincidentally, my work also won. I entered a short story cycle I had written, as the call for entries sought work from all disciplines at the University of Newcastle. And I fucking WON. First prize. I am no longer prepared to apologise for that, even though it seems few in the art world agreed with the decision and even fewer in the writing world see it as a proper literary achievement.
So there I was, gallery sitting, when a middle-aged white man approached the counter and asked me what I had entered. Clearly he knew that anyone with work in the exhibition also had to volunteer their time to gallery sit for at least a few hours. I could have said “Oh, I won. My work is in the corner of the gallery.” Instead, ever apologetic, I just told him where he could find it. But it seemed he had already seen all the works, because he immediately retorted: “Didn’t grab me.” Because I was so clearly waiting for his opinion on this. “It grabbed the judges,” said I, to which he looked surprised and asked how much the prize was worth. Like it was any of his filthy fucking business. But I told him. He seemed impressed with the amount, but not with the fact that I had won it. He went into the gallery and I went back to the counter, where he approached me about five minutes later and proceeded to ask what the point of my work was, with its tiny text that you had to get up close to read (he obviously hadn’t done this, because he hadn’t been gone long enough. He also confessed as much, insinuating he couldn’t really be bothered as it wasn’t a “visual” work).
So there I was, volunteering my time to work in a gallery, proud of my achievement not only in writing the work but also in being awarded first prize by two separate judges of sound mind, justifying myself to a middle-aged white man. Again. And again. I told him the challenge was to invest the time to read the work and then perhaps you would be rewarded with an emotional response, just as you might be with a visual work of art. I might as well have been reading the phone book. He didn’t see the point, though I think I won the argument because he gave up and congratulated me before thankfully leaving the building. But he didn’t read my work and he probably still thinks it doesn’t deserve to even be hanging in a student art prize, let alone win it. He’s entitled to that opinion, of course. But why of all days did he have to choose this Wednesday between 1pm and 5pm to come in to the gallery and throw it at me? These fucking tests are doing my head in.
Today, I went to a university lecture titled Perspectives on Film, Media and Culture. I had spent the past 36 hours closely (some might say a bit obsessively) following the political clusterfuck unfolding in Canberra via the Twitter feeds of the country’s best journalists as well as some on-point social commentators. I was also following more traditional coverage on ABC News 24 both on radio and television. I spent 20 years being a journalist and I boycott all news except political drama because I can’t get enough of that. In between marvelling at the professionalism of ABC journos who had been dissecting the drama for three straight days, I also read no less than five scholarly articles about the creative industries. Because they were assigned to be read for today’s lecture.
There were lots of things discussed in the lecture, probably lots of valid things and even interesting things, but I don’t remember many of them. What I do remember is the twenty-something (female) lecturer telling the class that women over the age of 40 don’t understand social media. They don’t understand how to use it or how it works. They think it works like life and it doesn’t, apparently. I am 45 years old and I wanted to tell her IT’S NOT FUCKING ROCKET SCIENCE. Instead I politely suggested that we don’t CONFUSE it with life, which is a different thing entirely. She tried to apologise, said she didn’t mean me obviously, not all women over 40 etcetera etcetera. Don’t fucking test me, I wanted to say. But I felt like I had already sat the test, and already failed it.
AND I AM TIRED OF YOUR FUCKING TESTS.
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