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“I am a teenager growing up during a time with war, corruption, discrimination, racism, sexism. Yet few seems angry by these issues. People see minor progress in social equality as solutions to our issues entirely and it just isn’t enough.”

Back in March 2015, and I’ve done it I’ve solved inequality. Present in a lower-level space at an Oxford art venue during a local round in a public speaking contest, I was convinced that perhaps I had presented this room full with adults and educators to the concept of feminism. I felt proud with myself.

The Competition

This speaking award is a competition aimed at older teens, between 16 and 19, where participants get a brief period to deliver on a work of art of their choice. I was told about it from the leader of my college, whose office I frequently visited shortly prior to the event. During school, I was clever though talkative and easily distracted. I felt everything intensely often becoming emotional and upset.

I also took a binary approach to my education: excel completely or quit entirely. In the office, we discussed my decision to abandon history AS-level soon after beginning it thinking it impossible to achieve for me to finish with an A. “Not everything about extremes,” he implored.

A Chance

Along with my patient art teacher, the head of sixth form saw that the competition proved exactly the opportunity that I needed – after all I loved art AS-level, and proved gobby as part the institution’s rag-tag discussion group. He proposed I develop a talk for an initial in-school heat. From memory, I don’t think no one else participated.

Choosing Art

I chose to speak about the artist’s pharmacy installations, which I had seen at his 2012 retrospective at Tate Modern (the poster of which is still stuck on the wall near my workspace). I encountered Hirst’s work initially as a child in north Devon, the north Devon town where my grandmother was raised, and where Hirst operated an eatery, its name, full of formaldehyde-imprisoned fish, and wallpaper with tablet designs. I loved that his work was funny and contrarian, that he successfully calling whatever he wanted “art”. I loved that my grandmother hated it. But maybe most of all, I loved that, because the medicine cabinet installations were named song names on their 1977 album, I could say “Sex” (Pistols) repeatedly in my speech. I truly was the boldest young thinker among my peers.

The Result

During the local round, there were nine other speakers, each presenting more refined historical references, offered less unqualified, broad claims, and used the word “bollocks” rarely. I was awarded the bronze position. For a teen who tied most self-esteem to success, this would usually meant a crushing blow. Yet then, the fact that people seemed to enjoy, and had laughed precisely where I intended, felt enough.

A New Path

When the organizers asked to give my talk again, this time as part of a conference in London, I had sent in my paperwork to read art history at university. Before the competition, I had thought I’d choose for English or German, not considering top universities, where I knew I would never be “top ranked”. Yet the experience had emboldened me and convinced me that my views deserved expression, without knowing the lingo. I didn’t need to be the best: I only had to put my spin on things.

Discovering Passion

Talking about art – and finding ways to entertain audiences while I do it – quickly became my guiding light. My Articulation journey came full circle upon returning recently as the inaugural graduate judge for a competition round.

The event gave me confidence outside academics: not that I would accomplish great things, but that I didn’t have to. I no longer needed to covet perfection; I needed to lean into personal expression. I transformed from anxious and easily overcome – emotional yet impatient to anger – into a person trusting their own abilities. I didn’t need necessary. For the first time, being genuine outweighed more to me than flawlessness.

Gratitude

I remain thankful to the sixth-form head who took time to understand me during my years as an obstinate and emotional young adult, instead of dismissing me (in retrospect, I think an eye roll would have been understandable). Life isn’t is absolute success or failure; I learned that attempts matter even without guarantees of “winning”.