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“I am a teenager growing up during a time with war, dishonesty, prejudice, racism, sexism. But no one seems angry by these issues. Many view minor progress towards equal society as solutions to our issues completely and it just falls short.”

It’s March 2015, I believed I had cracked inequality. Standing in a lower-level space of Modern Art Oxford for my regional heat of the Articulation prize, I truly believe that perhaps I just introduced this room full of parents and teachers to the idea regarding gender equality. I felt proud with myself.

The Contest

The Articulation prize is a competition for post-GCSE students, aged 16 to 19, where participants get a brief period to present on a work of art they select. I was told regarding this by my head of sixth form, whose office I had ended up in just weeks before the event. As a pupil, I was clever but chatty and easily distracted. Emotions hit me intensely often becoming emotional and upset.

My approach was an all-or-nothing approach to my education: excel completely or quit entirely. During our meeting, we discussed my decision to abandon a history course soon after beginning it thinking it impossible it would be possible completing it top graded. Life isn’t is death or glory,” he implored.

An Opportunity

Supported by my longsuffering art instructor, the director of sixth form recognised that Articulation was the perfect chance I required – since I enjoyed art studies, and was suitably gobby as part of the school’s rag-tag debate club. He suggested I develop a talk for an initial in-school heat. From memory, I don’t think anyone else applied.

Selecting a Topic

My presentation focused about Damien Hirst’s pharmacy installations, which I had seen at his 2012 retrospective at Tate Modern (a related print is still stuck on the wall behind my desk). I’d seen Hirst’s work for the first time as a child visiting Ilfracombe, a coastal location my elder relative had grown up, and where the artist operated an eatery, the Quay, full of preserved fish, and wallpaper with tablet designs. I appreciated his work was funny and contrarian, and that he got away with calling whatever as artistic. It amused me my grandmother hated it. But maybe most of all, I loved that, since the artwork took titles from song names on their 1977 album, I was going to say “The word” (Band name) repeatedly in my speech. I felt like the most radical young thinker among my peers.

The Result

During the local round, there were nine other speakers, each presenting more refined cultural context, offered less unsupported, broad claims, and said “nonsense” less. I was awarded the bronze position. As a teenager who put almost all of her self-worth to success, this would usually meant a crushing blow. But, in that moment, the fact that people seemed to enjoy, and chuckled precisely where I intended, proved sufficient.

A New Path

When Articulation invited me to present once more, this time as part of an event in London, I had sent in my paperwork to study history of art at university. Before the competition, I had thought I was going to apply literature or languages, not considering at Oxbridge, believing there I couldn’t become “the best”. Yet the experience boosted my courage and made me believe that my views deserved expression, even when I didn’t speak specialized terms. I no longer required to be the best: I just needed to put my spin on things.

Finding Purpose

Discussing creativity – and learning how to entertain audiences during presentations – quickly became my north star. My Articulation journey came full circle upon returning this spring to be the first graduate judge of an Articulation heat.

The competition built my self-assurance outside academics: not that I would accomplish major feats, but that I didn’t have to. I stopped requiring flawless results; I embraced my own voice. I transformed from anxious and easily overcome – emotional yet impatient to anger – into a person trusting their own abilities. I didn’t need to be perfect. For the first time, authenticity meant more to me than flawlessness.

Appreciation

I’ll always be grateful to the sixth-form head who made the effort to understand me when I was a stubborn, sensitive teenager, rather than simply dismissing me (in retrospect, I think an eye roll might have been understandable). Not everything is absolute success or failure; I realized it is often worth trying even without the promise of “victory”.