3:


Proposals, Rejection
After allowing the project to sit for quite a while as simply ideas in my head, it took me quite a push to start to get it to materialise. Upon reflection, these were perhaps some of the reasons why I had sidelined the project in my head, and what it finally took for me to go ahead and fight for it to happen.
One of the factors was that the project was initially not well received by the school. It felt like I was bothering my lecturers by doing a self-proposed project that would concern the school itself, rather than simply apply for an internship elsewhere like most of my peers are doing. The problem with the hesitation on the school’s end to be supportive of the project was that I felt like then perhaps it is not necessary to pursue it. This is especially because I always saw the project as one that would benefit the school community, and it was something that I am pursuing more so for the benefit of the community rather than for my personal gain. What I’ve learnt over time is that change is always difficult to achieve, and an instigator of any change or deviation from the norm would just simply have to muster up enough personal motivation to pursue the matter if it is worth pursuing.

The other factor is perhaps what I mentioned briefly, that the project was very much not for my personal gain, but rather one that I am pursuing because of my interest to negotiate with the education system and the problems that I see with it. Although it often does not make any sense for individuals to run a space, seeing that it requires the sacrifice of money, energy and time, I felt that this was a necessary challenge for myself to embark on, taking the lead from various other similar initiatives that I have been an active consumer of myself for the past few years. Being bordered increasingly about the ever-depressing state of the arts ecology and the various false idealism that exists, I saw the need also for us to think more about community, supporting one another, doing things together, instead constantly chasing after individual gains and personal achievements.



The current update for the project is that the proposals for all 3 initial spaces I had intended to use have been ruled out by the management, and I was given the choice to settle for the common room of A107 despite my initial intentions to move away from using such a enclosed and predictable space.



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